Rupinder Pal Singh helps Indian women's hockey team with penalty corner woes

Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Rupinder Pal Singh is helping the Indian women's hockey team to sharpen their penalty corner woes for the upcoming FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers in Ranchi.

The legendary drag flicker is at the SAI Bengaluru and mentoring the team in a five-day camp.

Despite winning the recent Asian Champions Trophy in Ranchi defeating Japan, India had wasted plenty of penalty corners, and coach Janneke Schopman had marked it as an area that needed urgent improvement.

Ace women's drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur termed the camp, which began on Wednesday at the SAI Bengaluru, as a perfect learning space ahead of the crucial qualifiers.

The Olympic qualifiers are scheduled to be held between January 13 and 19, 2024.

"We are learning new things each day and looking to further improve our game by focusing on specific aspects that need refinement. Rupinder has been instrumental in guiding us. As we gear up for the upcoming tournaments, we are confident that the lessons learned here will contribute significantly to our performance on the field," said Gurjit.

It was not tough to see why Gurjit emphasized improvement as the women's outfit's shortcomings in penalty-corner conversion were quite evident in the Hangzhou Asian Games, where they ended up with a bronze medal.

In that tournament, India had earned 69 penalty corners and converted just 16 of them at an average of 23.1 percent.

That Achilles' heel haunted them in the semifinal against hosts China as India could not score off the six penalty corners they earned. Eventually, India lost that game 0-4.

Deepika, who regularly takes the penalty corner, said Rupinder shared the nuances about drag flicking such as the angle to take the shot and how to tackle the first rushers from the opposition defence.

"He shared insights on the first rushers, how they have become fearless and close down on the ball faster than before. To counter this, he advised us to pick up the ball faster.

"We also picked his brain on how to beat the first rusher, determining the line the rusher follows, where to get the ball stopped, which angle to take the shot in, and how to deal with mis-trapped balls," noted Deepika.

Rupinder, who had scored a whopping 234 goals in 223 appearances before his retirement in 2021, said he was satisfied by the lesson-intake ability of his wards.

"Gurjit and Deepika are exceptional drag flickers. They quickly understand and implement my pointers. This crash course will be a fantastic way to brush up their skills before heading to Ranchi," said the towering full-back, who played a stellar role in India's bronze-winning effort in the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

In the Olympics Qualifiers ahead of the 2024 Paris Games, India is placed in Pool B along with New Zealand, Italy, and the United States.

Meanwhile, the Pool A consists of Germany, Japan, Chile, and the Czech Republic.