Onus on Foreign Players to Adapt to the Indian Style: Team Gonasika Coach Paul Revington

The Tarini Prasad Mohanty-owned Team Gonasika would be looking to put their best foot forward in the 6th Men’s Hockey India League at Rourkela. Under former Great Britain & England coach Paul Revington, the Vizag hockey franchise have a decent pool of players and more importantly, comprise a slew of seasoned Indian players (some of whom have either announced their international retirements or wore their national jersey long time back or still playing for the national team) such as Birendra Lakra, SV Sunil, SK Uthappa, and Nikkin Thimmaiah, former Indian captain Manpreet Singh, and Mandeep Singh.

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As far as their foreign firepower is concerned, Team Gonasika boast of five key Great Britain & England players in goalkeeper Oliver Payne, midfield trio of Jack Waller, Jacob Draper, and Lee Morton, and Struan Walker. What’s going for the Vizag hockey franchise is that coach Paul Revington knows these players inside out having served as Great Britain & England coach. “It’s always nice to know players I have worked with before, especially in this Hockey India League where there hasn’t been a whole lot of time at the coach’s disposal. I think it’s even more important to have a core group of players that know what is expected,” says Paul Revington in an exclusive interview with Hockey Passion.

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Revington is a much-respected coach having leapfrogged Great Britain & England to number two in FIH world rankings, and Team Gonasika would be hoping for great things from the South African. The team has come to terms with the withdrawal of two high-quality forwards – Tom Boon and Jereon Hetzberger. “For any franchise you buy big players you get excited and they have delivered quality hockey for a long, long time. We are naturally disappointed with their withdrawals. In such situations it is crucial to have Plan B or Plan C in place and react quickly,” quips Revington, who had previously served as Technical Director of Malaysia Hockey.

Team Gonasika initially had lined up plans to spend a bit of time in Bhubaneshwar and subsequently proceed to Rourkela to do away with needless travel. The team is preparing to ensure Indian players are in synch with the foreign players. “Look, we (the foreign players) are the guests in this country and it is not about us arriving and imposing what we’ve got to do. We have tried to ensure we are not giving so much information to Indian players that they’ve frozen. It’s also for the overseas players to adapt to the Indian style, which is for me as much important because we are guests in this country,” he points out.

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Team Gonasika lacks big names in the drag-flicking department but Revington insists they have a decent battery of drag-flickers to do the job for them. “Victor Charlet is very under-rated – if he had played for another country other than France, he may well have been regarded as an absolute elite drag-flicker. We know what he is capable of – we have another Frenchman Timothee Clement and Scottish forward Struan Walker besides the Indians like Araijeet Singh Hundal, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, and Amir Ali,” he opens up. Interestingly, Team Gonasika is the only franchise to have three drag-flicking forwards in Timothée Clement, Struan Walker, and Araijeet Singh Hundal.

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Revington believes staying consistent would be the key in the HIL. “You need to have a degree of consistency across a league – I don’t know if any of the teams are going to stay unbeaten throughout the seven weeks of action. The team that maintains consistency can grow game by game and is likely to be one hat ends up in the top four, and then it becomes a play-off entity. It is important to start well, stay composed and keep improving. And as long as you do that, you’re going to accumulate points and that will set you in a good direction,” he fires a parting shot.