'I don’t coach to participate, I coach to win': India hockey coach Craig Fulton

New Delhi: Indian men’s hockey team coach Craig Fulton is in a happy space with his team’s performance at the recently concluded 2024-25 FIH Pro League matches in Bhubaneswar.

Five wins from eight matches have put the men in blue (15 points) only a point behind England and Belgium in the standings.

The 50-year-old Fulton's priority, post the Paris Olympics high, is to build a strong pool of resources and focus on result-oriented performance in the upcoming tournaments.

In an exclusive conversation with The Bridge, Fulton shares his plan for team India. Excerpts:

What are your takeaways from the reverse-format of the recently concluded FIH Pro League?

It’s been positive. We used 27 players in eight games. We have a big squad, that’s something we’ve always been aiming to do post the Hockey India League and this Pro League.

You need to play games to understand where you are and what you need to work on and every game that we lost, we bounced back. We had a good performance the following day, from the first game against Spain to the second, from the first German game to the second. We had two good consistent games against Ireland.

Would it be right to say, the team’s preparations are on track?

Yeah, for sure. Like I said, we've used 27 players. We've never done that before and that's indicative of trying to create more depth for us so that we have more players that can play. If any experienced player is injured, we have someone else that can step in and carry on.

How did you work around a big pool of 27 players during the Pro League?

We tried to use a full squad for both games. If they don’t get to play the first match, they watch and learn. From a tactical point of view, they come in for the second game.

The players are also aware of what’s going on because sometimes when you play a team the first time you’re not 100% sure what they're going to do. But the second time, you’ve already played so you are much more assured of what to expect.

We played eight games in 11 days and all the other teams only played four. We had to make sure we’re using all our players to keep everyone fresh to try and play out the eight games.

Ten penalty corners, not a single goal scored against Germany. Is that a potential weakness?

The defences are getting better. We had a game against Germany where there were 11 PCs in the whole game for both teams and not one goal was scored. Germany are world champions and Olympics silver medalists. Everyone has a very similar challenge and they've got one of the best flickers in the world.

So, it all depends on how good your goalkeeper, penalty corner preparation is and your first wave runners are. And, for all teams nowadays the protection is getting better so the runners are much braver and they're a lot more educated. So it's becoming harder. It's almost trying to link variations with direct flicking as well. Which is what we've done since then and it's helped.

The team is already in an experimental phase post Paris. How do you plan to move forward?

There’s national championships in April and we are expecting another big squad in SAI Bangalore where we choose the core probables. Once that is done, we would have a better idea of the group that we're going to go forward with. Right now, it’s work in progress.

At the moment, it’s a mixed group. We rested the senior guys that came back from Paris because they hadn't had a decent break and then we used another group of players and that's been the build up till now. We haven't had a lot of training time together. We'll have a better block going into the pro league in May and June. We would have selected our group by then.

You've been associated with Ireland and Belgium. How different is your experience with team India?

It's refreshing. A full-time program wasn't possible in Ireland. It was possible in Belgium and it's obviously very possible in India. You can plan for tournaments that are 15 months away because you spend a lot of time together and can work on all parts of the program, tactically, technically, mentally, physically. But you need to plan well.

Now, we have a big picture 2026 (Asian Games) and 2028 (Los Angeles Olympics). But we can't get to 2028 before we've done 2026. We can't get to 2026 before we qualify for the World Cup. And so, 2025 becomes an important year for qualification.

On a lighter note, what's the best part about India that you like?

I like the fact that people love their hockey, they love their sport, they love their cricket and they want the best for the hockey team. We want to perform for them.

We want to create a legacy of success and we would love to win a World cup and love to win an Olympic gold. That would be the ultimate dream. I don't coach just to participate, I coach to win.

But sometimes it depends on what phase you're in with your team. We came close to making that final (Paris Olympics), and that's given us a lot of confidence that we're on the right track.