~Hockey Affiliation of Odisha gears as much as face Hockey Haryana within the Quarter-Finals~
Pune, 20 March 2024: On the 14th Hockey India Senior Girls Nationwide Championship 2024, the Hockey Affiliation of Odisha (HAO) secured a decisive win towards Hockey Chandigarh, solidifying their place atop their pool and guaranteeing a spot within the Quarter-Finals. Following this spectacular 6-1 victory, Head Coach Sujit Lakra provided insights on the staff’s prospects of their forthcoming conflict towards Haryana. He emphasised the importance of grassroots growth packages in Odisha and the intensifying stage of competitors from collaborating states.
Within the Quarter-Finals, Hockey Affiliation of Odisha will face the skilled Hockey Haryana.
Talking on the staff’s strategy on this match, Head Coach Sujit Lakra stated, “For us, our focus might be on execution. Sure, Haryana is a really robust staff, and so they have a robust core of Indian Girls’s Hockey Staff gamers, however that doesn’t matter on the match day. Our goal is to stay to our roles and execute what we’ve got learnt in follow. My message to the gamers is to not overthink and take delight in representing Odisha.”
The Hockey Affiliation of Odisha options three Indian Girls’s Hockey Staff gamers within the squad together with Mariana Kujur, Ajmina Kujur and Jyoti Chhatri. On their affect, the top coach opined, “They’ve a huge impact within the staff, not solely do they inspire the opposite gamers, however they carry with them the expertise of high-pressure conditions. In addition they have had extra publicity to gamers from different states and might help the staff tactically as nicely.”
The Hockey Affiliation of Odisha has persistently been a power to reckon with on the Senior Girls Nationwide Championship. Within the earlier version, they completed in fifth place and emerged as Champions within the version earlier than that. Sujit Lakra attributed the success to the numerous effort that has been poured into nourishing the hockey ecosystem in Odisha, together with grassroots initiative and infrastructure that includes 23 Hockey Coaching Centres, Sports activities Hostels and the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey Excessive-Efficiency Centre.
“I feel we’ve got glorious infrastructure in Odisha that allows us to develop hockey extensively. Moreover, we’ve got quite a few grassroots initiatives. This not solely serves as a pipeline for expertise identification however when a participant reaches the senior set-up, the transition interval is shortened as a result of they have already got a sure stage of ability, health, and professionalism. As a coach, it’s simple for us to work with them.”
Sujit Lakra underscored the rising stage of competitors on the Senior Girls Nationwide Championships and lauded the assorted measures applied by Hockey India in the direction of empowering member associations. “The extent of competitors could be very excessive this 12 months. Each time we come again to the Nationwide Championship it will get extra aggressive. Hockey India has achieved a wonderful job of selling the sport. For instance, final 12 months, Hockey India offered important taking part in tools together with hockey sticks and hockey balls to each member state. In the event you present frequent competitions and tools, then it’s no shock that the sport will develop, and the standard will get higher yearly.”
All of the matches might be live-streamed on FanCode.