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.
"Overall satisfactory but then we now require much tougher matches to prepare us for the Olympic Games."
In Spain, India will play two matches each against the hosts and South Africa from July 5-11. That will be followed by a three-nation invitational tournament between Spain, India and Great Britain from July 14-18. It will be India's last competitive practice before the London Olympics.
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