While the Asian Games later this year will be his biggest challenge in the nine months since taking charge in January, Indian women’s hockey coach Sjoerd Marijne is focussed on immediate goals, insisting having a good team culture and developing consistency was more important in the long run.

The Indian team will be travelling for four practice matches in Australia next week followed by the Nations Cup in Auckland before the two big-ticket events — World Cup and Asian Games. “We had a very good tour of Argentina. We will have training and conditioning sessions as well in Australia, who play a very different style.

“There was little time to work on load management before this camp but it was important to put a benchmark for the girls to know what we expect from them. You cannot create better fitness in one or two months; chances of injuries is much higher and we want to avoid that,” Marijne noted in an interaction facilitated by SAI on Friday, revealing that the team had as many as 14 injuries when he took charge.

The Nations Cup will be important for India both to return to the Pro League and prepare for the World Cup and although Marijne was optimistic about India’s chances at the latter, he refused to predict the outcome. “I believe they have the potential but other teams haven’t been sitting still, they are also developing,” he admitted.

Asked about areas of improvement, Marijne preferred to look at the whole picture. “I want to improve everything but for me it’s more about behaviour and showing the same every time on field so that it becomes a habit. A good team culture leads to winning matches.

“The more consistency and continuity we bring in our games, our level goes that much higher. It helps that I know the girls and they know how I work; I am high demanding but there is also time to relax and you need to be able to switch quickly between the two,” he declared.