By Michael Nobbs

We sure got ourselves a lesson in how to play hockey last night. The Australian team showed us why they are the best team in the world and by a very long way. Losing 8-3 is humiliating and I wish the team learns fast enough. The Aussies were faster, bigger and stronger than us and their ball skills at speed were nothing short of breathtaking. They have been preparing this team for the last 8 years. We have just started.

I spoke to our team of the need to play their best and to be ready for an onslaught that they have never seen before. I don’t think they really believed me. I feel they still had the thought that they are a good team based on our win in Ordos. I think Australia is truly the benchmark to which we need to aspire. We have a long hard road to go down.

I was even shocked at the physical size of the Australian team. They are a good 8-10 kilos heavier and with that they are a lot faster than we are. They make little execution errors and punished us severely for any errors we made. They forced us to make a lot and we didn’t handle it well. They played at times desperate hockey to keep the ball in play, diving at any player who got away and diving to make sure the ball didn’t go over the back line.

I think this is the reality check India and we as a team needed. We will learn a lot from this and there are clearly some players struggling with playing. We are at the moment just a good team playing in our own backyard against the likes of Korea, China etc.

We will need a huge improvement in nutrition to build our size and strength and specialized training in skills development.  We are not even playing in the same sandpit as Australia and some of the other nations. We have a lot of work to do and it’s going to be a very rough journey and some are not going to make it.

We play Pakistan on Thursday and see if we can rebuild and get a better result.

(Michael Nobbs is the Indian men’s hockey coach)