Le Touquet, France: India made little work of France here in the second friendly hockey Test, beating the hosts 4-0 to sweep the two-match series. But as the Indian men's hockey team leaves France to cross the border into Spain for a triangular series before the Olympics, coach Michael Nobbs expects his side to not relent and up their scoring rate leading up to the London Games.
Nobbs termed the team's performance in the second match here as "solid but underwhelming", largely due to less-than-expected shots at the opponent's goal.
"If I can be critical, we spent too much time playing around the back instead of our normal patterns of playing the ball to the forwards as quickly as we can, which would have resulted in more shots at goal," the Australian said.
"The French team came out a different side this game but basically played an eleven-man defence against us. It was a solid performance by us but underwhelming. We played down to their level at times and did enough to win comfortably but we could have done significantly more," he added, suggesting his team should have gone more on the attack against a defensive France....
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07:19 PM, Jul 02, 2012
Lille: India kicked off their pre-Olympic European tour with a thumping 8-2 win over France on Thursday, and though coach Michael Nobbs was upset with the performance of his boys in the first half, overall he was satisfied considering the team was still acclimatising to the conditions. "Well, this was our first game and it was to acclimatise to [the] European conditions. We had two debutants, [Pradhan] Somanna and Nitin...
05:44 PM, Jun 29, 2012
Lille: Indian hockey team's preparations for next month's Olympic Games began on a confident note with a 8-2 route of France in the first of the two friendly matches here on Thursday. India led 3-2 at the half-time after the home side had taken an early lead. SK Uthappa scored the equaliser with a field goal while Sandeep Singh's penalty corner strike gave India a 2-1 lead. Gurvinder Singh Chandi... 
