Asia Cup ahead, Coach Tim White wants India juniors to embrace senior-level habits | Hockey News
KOLKATA: For Tim White, developing India’s next generation of hockey players is about more than what they do with a stick in their hands.The chief coach of the junior women’s team, who took charge earlier this year, believes the process of preparing players for the senior side must also involve educating them about nutrition, recovery, strength and conditioning, and the habits required to become high-performance athletes.“Some of them, from a nutrition and physical perspective, are not as advanced as others. We have a squad of 40 players, and they all come from very different backgrounds,” said White during an interaction with TOI on Friday.“So, it has been a real focus for me and my staff to educate them and help them understand what it means to be a high-performance athlete. That is not only nutrition. It is recovery, strength and conditioning, aerobic conditioning and all those types of things.”White’s immediate task is to prepare India for the Junior Women’s Asia Cup, where they will begin their campaign against South Korea in Moqi, China, on Saturday.His work with the group has also been shaped by a brief stint with the senior Indian women’s team ahead of the World Cup. Having previously worked with the senior and junior women in Belgium, White believes the transition has been relatively straightforward, with the two Indian programmes sharing similar playing philosophies.“My work with the senior women was a good period. They are on a very good trajectory, as we all know, and they had an excellent World Cup,” he said.“Now transitioning back into the juniors, it’s also great because there’s a lot of alignment between the senior women and the junior women in terms of the type of athletes that we’re trying to produce and the style of play that we’re trying to build.”The junior team’s recent tour of the UK also provided White with an opportunity to assess how far the players had progressed. India played seven matches — two in Scotland against the senior women and five in Lilleshall, England, against junior teams from the USA, Belgium and England.While they finished the tour with three victories, three defeats and one shootout loss, it gave several players their first experience of travelling outside India and playing against international opposition.“We took 24 athletes with us. We exposed them to what it was like to travel, because some of them hadn’t travelled outside India before,” White said. “They were also exposed to different playing styles. A lot of them have played plenty of domestic hockey but hadn’t played against international teams before.”For White, the most encouraging aspect of the tour was the team’s defensive organisation. He believes Indian players are naturally comfortable with the ball but need to continue developing their understanding of how to play without it.But the demanding schedule at the Asia Cup will be another test. With India beginning their campaign on Saturday, the team could face seven matches in nine days, making recovery and player management particularly important.“We need to make sure the group stays physically healthy, fit and strong, and is ready for the next game,” said White, who believes India will face the toughest test against China.The Australian’s focus though is not just towards success in Junior Asia Cup, but towards preparing the juniors to develop into the senior internationals India hopes they can become.
