‘Need mental conditioning’: Hockey coach after India’s World Cup exit

“We probably need to try something different. After that, we’ll work on how we can incorporate a mental coach. I think that’s an important part.” future of the team,” a distraught Reid said in the post-match conference.

He shared his experience of working with various teams across the world and even said that the mental aspect of the game acts as a silver bullet.

“As far as drills or training are concerned, we do what all the other teams do. I’ve been in this game a long time and I know what the other teams are doing. I think (( is) mentally,” the coach added.

The match was tied 3-3 after five shots of the penalty shootout. In the first round of sudden death, captain Harmanpreet Singh had a good chance to win the game after New Zealand’s Nick Woods failed his attempt, but Singh decided to take a direct hit from distance, only to miss the golden opportunity.

When Harmanpreet Singh was asked about his shot selection, he said, “It was a good opportunity and I wanted to seal the match by scoring. But it did not happen.”

For the next two rounds, each team scored one goal each while missing one goal each. In the end, Shamsher missed the shot while Sam Lane gave his team a 5-4 win.

“Tonight, we lacked consistency. In the last quarter, for example, we let ourselves down. We threw the ball away, and kept doing things like that, making things very difficult for us.” Every team has them at some level.” Some issues like converting circle penetration. We need to go back to the drawing board after a while,” said coach Graham Reid.

“It is very difficult to answer questions after such a loss. It is skill execution (lack) at the end of the day, we need to work on that,” he added.

(With inputs from PTI)