India coach Roelant Oltmans praised his players for not conceding a single corner in the bronze medal match of the 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, which the team won 4-0 against New Zealand here today.
“I don’t think New Zealand had one serious shot on the goal in the whole game. We did not concede a single corner,” said Oltmans, expressing satisfaction at the manner in which India turned around its game after yesterday’s disappointing 0-1 loss to Malaysia.
India needed a two-goal victory over Malaysia to secure its second consecutive entry into the final of this tournament, but played an erratic match to end up losing to the host, which had lost three previous matches.
Against the Black Sticks, India rode on two penalty corner conversions by Rupinderpal Singh (17th and 27th minutes) besides field goals from S V Sunil (48th) and Talwinder Singh (60th) to assert its supremacy.
“Our defence was really well organised today. They kept the structure really well,” said Oltmans.
“We also managed to create a lot of goal-scoring opportunities. If one wants to be critical, we didn’t score as many goals from the opportunities that we created. The way we finished that off is not good enough yet. That is something we need to work hard on.
“We were also unlucky at times as the ball rebounded off bar on one instance,” the coach added.
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