Understanding the game and players is key, says mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton

Rajgir (Bihar), Sep 1 (PTI) Renowned mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton has worked across different sports during an illustrious career, but he believes the principles of the job remain the same: Understanding the need of the game and players.

Upton, who was a part of the support staff under head coach Gary Kirsten during India's 2011 Cricket World Cup-winning campaign, is currently associated with the men's hockey team at the ongoing Asia Cup here.

He was also part of the Indian hockey team's bronze medal-winning campaign at the Paris Olympics, and triumphant sides of last year's Asian Champions Trophy and 2022 Asian Games.

"The principles of teamwork remain the same. There is a different type of teamwork in hockey, multiple players need to connect, whereas cricket is also a teamwork but more individual.

"But the principles of remaining focussed, the principles of managing distractions -- like scoreboard, like fans, like opposition, like making mistakes, all remain the same," the 55-year-old Upton told PTI in an interview.

Upton's career mainly revolved around cricket, having worked with the South African team and many T20 franchises around the world, including Rajasthan Royals in IPL.

But he has also worked in other sports like rugby and most recently hockey.

"Working in hockey, I don't know very much about the game and I am not from India. I am still a visitor here, so my approach is really to listen, pay attention to understand the environment, understand the game, understand each individual," the South African said.

"Only when I understand I will be able to step in and offer some assistance." Asked about his methodology while working with the Indian hockey team, Upton said: "It is both one on one and team sessions. We do workshops with the team and I also do one-on-one sessions. In the end it depends on the coach and captain, what they want." Upton said the focus of the Indian hockey team right now is to build towards next year's World Cup, Asian Games, and the 2028 Olympics.

"My previous experience was the year in the lead-up to the Olympics, then they were definitely in a building phase and had a very clear strategy to build towards the Olympics from the fitness perspective, strategy perspective, and mental guide perspective.

"And now almost this is phase two of building towards the World Cup, Asian Games and the big picture - the Olympics. So the team is in a building phase. They have got very good leadership, particularly in coach Craig Fulton and Harmanpreet. They are just building the foundation without getting ahead of ourselves," he said.

Scope for improvement =============== Upton has a high regard for the Indian hockey team's professionalism and work ethics, but said there is still room for improvement.

"The team is incredibly professional. I am amazed at the work ethic, the physical work ethic, how hard they train sometimes in difficult conditions. These are very dedicated, professional hockey players. It's very exciting to be involved with a team like this," he said.

"(But) there are some habits that players are aware of, coaches are aware of and we are working towards that. We always have a shorter focus on what we can learn from today's game and a long-term focus that we don't want to be arriving at our best in the first round, but what we want to do is slowly build towards the business end of the tournament." India defeated China 4-3 and then scrapped past Japan 3-2 to enter the Super 4s stage of the Asia Cup tournament, the winner of which will qualify for next year's World Cup.

Upton said the best is yet to come from the home team.

"We didn't play our best hockey in the first two games but we are still winning and that's the sign of a good team. You keep building, you keep learning and getting better. Towards the business end of the tournament you want to move to 8 or 9 out of a scale of 10." Just before the Paris Games, Upton took the Indian team for a challenging three-day training camp in the Swiss Alps, at the base camp of adventurer Mike Horn.

Explaining the rationale behind the camp, Upton said: "I just wanted to take the players out of their comfort zones. The Olympics is always going to present the highest pressure and it's very difficult to replicate high pressure situations in practice games.

"But when we took them into the mountains, they faced genuine fears, fear of life, fear of height, fear of unknown, fear of uncertainty and through that process they could face their fears, see their fears.

"It was a real practical way of working with the players and getting to understand how they react under high pressure, under fearful and stressful situations. It was a practical experience of managing their minds." PTI SSC SSC AH AH