Oltmans eager to work with Van Ass

Bhubaneswar: Indian hockey team’s high performance director Roelant Oltmans, who is also the coach of Uttar Pradesh Wizards in the Hockey India League, is looking forward to working with new national coach Paul van Ass of The Netherlands. Van Ass was named the chief coach on Friday nearly two months after Australian Terry Walsh quit the job.
“We are very happy that such a good coach is most likely to become the new coach of the country,” said Oltmans, who has also worked as the coach of the national teams on interim basis.
Asked what will be the challenges for the new coach, the Dutchman said: “The biggest challenge will be to bring in more consistency. Self belief of the team has improved but the team hasn’t been consistent in all the matches.”
Oltmans also defended compatriot Van Ass when asked about the controversial decisions that he made during his tenure as the coach of the Netherlands. “Don’t know why you call him controversial because I don’t think it’s true. Coaches take decisions and sometimes some people don’t agree upon these decisions. That is fine but that’s part of our job. In the end, he coached nine international tournaments in the past few years and he won a medal in all these tournaments and this shows he is absolutely a good coach,” he said.
Although India have qualified for the 2016 Olympics, Oltmans believes there are still a lot of hard work ahead of them.
Speaking on how the team will prepare for next year’s Olympics, Oltmans said: “After HIL, the national team’s first challenge will be the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia. We will then participate in a four-nation tournament in New Zealand and then we have the third round of the World League Hockey. After that we will have an European tour and then have a test series with Australia again.”
Meanwhile, he was satisfied with the team’s performance throughout last year except at the World Cup, where they finished ninth. “Overall, 2014 was a very good year for the country in hockey. The team has been able to beat top sides in the world occasionally. They won the gold in the Asian Games and also achieved some good results in the Champions Trophy and the Commonwealth Games,” he added.
As far as HIL is concerned, Oltmans said: “It’s good to see that the level of the tournament is getting higher. What is most pleasing is the way the Indian players have improved over this period by playing in the tournament.”