India coach Fulton rues poor start after team’s exit

India men’s head coach Craig Fulton blamed his side’s poor start in the 5-3 loss to Argentina, ending its World Cup run here on Monday.

Mistakes in the opening five minutes were punished by Argentina as India played the chasing game, before more errors in the second half extinguished any hopes of a turnaround. India will now play Belgium for the seventh place.

“I think the outcome was bigger than the performance. So I think that got the better of us. If we had just gone back to our normal approach, which I was hoping we would, (it would have been different). I take full responsibility for that,” Fulton told Sportstar.

“It was just not how we want to start again, unfortunately. Argentina will punish mistakes, and they did. But it was nice to see in the last 10-12 minutes that we came back and could have scored three goals in the five-six minutes but it was too late.”

Yashdeep Siwach was culpable for two errors in the back, resulting in Nicolas Della Torre scoring from a penalty corner before Tomas Domene slotted in a penalty stroke.

When asked if the young defender struggled to cope with the demands of th big stage, the South African, instead, felt it was an off day for the whole team.

“I think everyone didn’t have a good day today. Not just one player. I think it happens and it happened to us in this game. We were hoping for a better performance, considering the ramifications.

“I think we put ourselves in this situation in the England game. Had we held out and tried to get a result in that game, it would have changed everything further down. But we tried and it wasn’t to be,” said Fulton.

Defender Jugraj Singh, who had had an ordinary World Cup, once again, didn’t feature in the second round. Fulton, however, hinted at rotation policy for his continued omission.

“No, rotation. So just rotation. [Nilkanta Sharma] Kanta today, Vivek [Sagar Prasad] yesterday (sic). So we’re using these games for Asian Games as well,” Fulton clarified.

In the 21 games this year, India has lost 10, while conceding 45 goals. When asked if he was confident of turning things around, Fulton remained optimistic.

“Yes, that’s the plan. We’re still playing (for) our ranking. We’ve got one more game. So I’m looking forward to it,” he added.