India in a good space ahead of Asia Cup final against Korea: Fulton

Rajgir (Bihar), Sep 6 (PTI) Fresh from their rousing win over China, India will face defending champions Korea in Sunday's Asia Cup hockey final for a World Cup berth, and chief coach Craig Fulton is confident his players are "in a good space" despite the back-to-back challenge.

India produced a ruthless performance to thrash China 7-0 in the final Super 4 match to storm into the final, where a World Cup berth will be at stake against defending champions Korea.

"Always the hardest thing in sport is back-to-back matches. We got to repeat our performance. But at the same time the guys are in a good place, they are playing well and they are playing for each other which is more important than anything else," Fulton said after the match.

"The hardest part was getting here and now need to just play the match and not the occasion, but you need to think about tomorrow. You need to be clinical." "It's super important to stay humble, stay grounded and that's the no.1 thing." India used the aerial ball to good effect against China, consistently breaking down their deep defence.

"It was all relevant to what China did. They played really deep, really low and they don't want to really press, so we have to come up with another plan and that's was the plan (ariel balls)," Fulton said.

Besides scoring seven goals, India didn't let their opponent's secure a single penalty corner.

"I said before we were playing well but we were just not able to convert. We took a step with the Malaysia game and took another step tonight. We are defending well.

"That's the way (penalty corners) they (China) score goals and also the way they get them as well outside the D. So it's really good to see we being disciplined not to give anything," Fulton said.

"The last time we played them we didn't have a good feeling." Fulton, however, warned his wards against taking Korea lightly, and advised them to focus on process and not the occasion.

"We just got to play the game not the occasion. The same process and approach what we have been doing, getting better and better in certain areas.

"It's a final so no disrespect to any team. We got to deliver and we are focussed on doing that," he concluded. PTI SSC TAP