Four or five of Reid’s players maxed out the yo-yo test at the time, and most of the rest reached the last or second-last rung. What pleased him more was the timing: the scores came straight after a break, proof the group had done the work he set them while they were away and come back fit. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
India’s junior development is being reshaped by Khelo India, a large government scheme setting up centralised campuses for younger players across the country, with the under-21 programme expected to fold into it. Reid does not run the juniors himself but works closely with the under-21 coach, who is based at the same Bangalore campus, so the senior team’s way of playing filters down. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
People trust in different ways, Reid explains: through competence, reliability, integrity, communication or openness. His exercise is to have every player rate how much each of those matters to them, then share the answers across the group. On the pitch he wants unpredictability from certain players, but withheld passes usually mean withheld trust, so when someone stops passing to a teammate he gets the pair talking. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
Ric Charlesworth tops the list: Reid credits their arguments, shared video sessions and tactics talks with salt and pepper shakers going back to their playing days in the 80s. From his years running his own business he kept the habit of reading a book a week, and he still returns to the Seven Habits, a book on handling high-stakes conversations, and Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
Reid says he does not care which caste, background or religion a player comes from; his aim is to treat everyone fairly, and arriving fresh with few preconceptions made that easier. Cliques exist everywhere, he argues, whether built on religion in India or state rivalries in Australia, and the coach’s job is to broaden connections between players so no group closes itself off. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
Communication and compromise are Reid’s answer. National coaches think in Olympic cycles while clubs need sponsors and weekend wins, so conflicting objectives are normal and both sides will sometimes agree to disagree. He points to Belgium as proof of what happens when clubs and the national programme genuinely pull together, and says finding that arrangement was a project he had wanted to pursue in Holland. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
A typical week for India runs to about three red sessions, designed to push player load to roughly 1.4 times a full international, plus two or three lighter green sessions that are individual or scenario based. On top come video sessions, two or three gym sessions and, borrowed from the Australian programme, one real, full-intensity game a week, which Reid admits is the hardest thing to get right. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
Every drill Reid designs has historically finished with a keeper involved, a habit formed in Perth club hockey where limited pitch time meant exercises had to end in a shot at goal. He is candid that he used to ignore goalkeepers earlier in his career, not from disrespect but because he lacked the skills to teach them, and now treats specialist keeper coaches as an important part of any programme. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
TCUP, thinking clearly under pressure, comes down to experiencing situations before they happen, which Reid calls scenario-based training: a man down, your keeper off, both teams short. Before Rio, Australia even sat on the bus for 45 minutes before and after games to get used to Olympic travel times. As for the pools, quarter-finals make both equally hard, so India plan for every opponent in the draw. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
What struck Reid on arriving was how tactically and technically savvy the Indian players were: all of them use iPads and pick out their own clips after games. He reads the squad as a sum of its experiences, each of their previous world-class coaches having left a signature, and sees Indian skills as different from Dutch or Australian ones but world class in their own way. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.
For Graham Reid, defending starts with one-on-one tackling: coming in at a 45 degree angle, keeping the stick low, getting the distance right, and above all good footwork. His wider principle is that defence starts from the front. The strikers set the tone, because winning the ball back in the opposition’s half turns straight into attack. Watch the full masterclass: Field Hockey Tactics, Trust and Team Dynamics: Insights from Indian Men’s Coach Graham Reid.