Indians almost outshone by Juniors in win

Press, 5 September 1983, Page 32

Indians almost outshone by Juniors in win

From

KEVIN TUTTY

in Palmerston North

India won the first match of its short New Zealand hockey tour, 2-0, against the New Zealand Juniors yesterday, but it was made to fight hard for its success. The Juniors, thrown together at the end of a hard week of hockey at the Adidas national tournament, played with determination, and at times, a high degree of skill, against the touring side’s top line-up. In the first half, they did as much attacking as the Indians and a couple of times forced quick saves from the Indian goal-keeper, Romeo James. The Juniors forced five penalty-corners to India’s three in the first half, an indication of the amount of attacking it did.

India, fresh from the Five Nations tournament in Kuala Lumpur, appeared to have difficulty adapting to grass from the artificial surface on which they had been playing. Its trapping was not as sound as one

would expect, and some of the passing was underhit. Playing a 3-3-3-1 formation, the Juniors marked the Indians very tightly, and often when Indian forwards received the ball, they found two eager New Zealand players ready to rob them. Shahid, at inside-left, the most dangerous of the - Indian forwards, was heavily marked and given little room to manoeuvre, but he still managed to score the first goal after 23 minutes with a deft piece of stickwork in the circle. The Juniors made three raids on the Indian circle in the first 15 minutes, and prominent in all of these was the Canterbury player, lan Riach on the leftwing. The first of these, which forced a sharp save from James, started on the right flank and the ball moved through four players before Riach had his shot.

Outstanding on defence in the New Zealand side was

Chan Chibha from Auckland. Time and again he came away with the ball from tackles when an Indian forward looked set to break through the defence. India missed a penaltystroke in the first half after Chibha had made what seemed to be a well-exe-cuted reverse stick tackle, but the Indian umpire awarded a penaltystroke. Carvalho, the centre-half, fired the ball wide of the goal. He scored from a second stroke 19 minutes into the secondhalf after an Indian forward’s stick was hacked in the circle. Jim Smith and John Radovonich were other New Zealand players who impressed with their high work-rate, and Radovonich was often prominent in attacks. David Penfold at centrehalf improved his delivery although he was stil slow at times. After 15 minutes of the

second half, the Juniors appeared to be gaining some ascendancy and twice they found their way through the Indian defence only for the shots at goal to be mis-hit. The Juniors were allowed to make four substitutions during the game and this enabled the coach, Trevor Blake, to give most of his 16-man squad at least part of a game and keep the

defence relatively fresh. When given the opportunity, the Indian forwards impressed with their acceleration, changes of pace, and slick dribbling. At times they had the Junior’s defence groping badly. Jallaluddin on the rightwing and the captain on the leftwing, Zafar Iqbal, both made some scintillating runs down their respective flanks.