KARACHI: Pakistan hockey coach Hanif Khan said on Tuesday that there are a number of areas the national outfit need to improve in and he was working on various strategies to help Pakistan in overcoming formidable sides like Australia and the Netherlands.

“My target this year is to make Pakistan team stronger tactically and mentally to fare better and become winners against teams like Australia and the Netherlands,” he told APP.

“A lot of work still needs to be done to improve our scoring firepower through field goals as well as conversion of penalty-corners,” he commented.

“My efforts aim to help players improve themselves physically and psychologically.”

“The team needed to implement the 70-minute plan given to them before each match to emerge winners,” the hockey coach remarked while saying that most of the players are experienced and did not need coaching but proper plan to implement in the field.

Talking about in lengths about various problems the Pakistan team are faced with, Hanif, a member of 1984 Los Angles Olympic gold medal winning team, opined that the team needed to strengthen their game in the mid-field besides improving defence against counter-attacks.

“Finishing is another big problem as our players create a number of goal-scoring moves but lack basic skills to finish them properly,” he said, adding that he is guiding forwards how to improve their finishing.

After retirement of penalty-corner specialist Sohail Abbas, Pakistan needed to produce other penalty-corner specialists, the coach stated while saying: “Atiq, Tausiq, Irfan are all good prospects apart from captain Mohammad Imran, but they needed to work hard to improve their short-corner conversion.”

He said winning the bronze medal in Melbourne and clinching the Asian Champions Trophy in Doha have given players confidence.

“Securing bronze in the Champions Trophy and gold medal in the Asian Champions Trophy is a step in the right direction. We hope that players would work harder for reviving past glories of Pakistan hockey.”—APP