Indian women’s team analytical coach Smolenaars optimistic of Hockey India League benefiting national side

When Dave Smolenaars took charge as the analytical coach of the Indian women’s hockey team in June this year, it was a bittersweet period for the squad.

It had only just failed to qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, missing out on a chance to improve on its fourth-place finish at Tokyo.

And yet, at the same time, Smolenaars recalls there was a sense of optimism over the fact that, in a few months, it would get a chance to be part of the first ever women’s edition of the Hockey India League (HIL).

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“It was a mixed sort of feeling. The girls were really disappointed not to make the Olympics because in our sports that is the highest level of competition they could take part in. This was especially hard for the girls who had already gone to Tokyo and done well there. They had a good feeling about trying to get that same achievement. It was also hard for the young girls who watched the Tokyo Games, hoping to be there as well but missed out. That was a big setback but at the same time there was a lot of buzz about the fact that women’s hockey was also coming to the HIL. It’s something that showed they were recognised and had respect from Hockey India. That was a boost, along with the fact that it was going to help them as well. They knew how privileged they were to be a part of it,” said Smolenaars.

The Dutchman will be part of the HIL himself. On Friday, he was named coach of the women’s team of the Delhi franchise, operated by SG Pipers. For Smolenaars, the women’s league of the HIL can do for the women’s game in India what the men’s league did for the men’s sport – multiple players have credited the exposure to a high level of competition in the men’s HIL for India’s rise in international men’s hockey, capped by consecutive medals at the Olympics.

“When they play in the HIL, it will be under the most pressure many of them (the women’s players) have ever played in. They will work with big players, not just from India but overseas as well (each of the women’s teams can feature five international players in the playing XI). They will get to work with different coaches and international players, which will give them new information and new ways of looking at the sport but also looking at the way they are as athletes in general. That will help massively, not only for the really young players, but also for the little bit older players, like 21 to 25, that are still growing up as players in the national team,” said Smolenaars.

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And while Smolenaars says his primary role will be to focus on his side, he will also be keeping an eye out for how to improve the Indian women’s teams prospects.

He isn’t the only member of the Indian coaching system who will be making use of the HIL. “(National coach) Harendra Singh isn’t coaching a team in the HIL not just because he doesn’t want to see a conflict of interest but also because he wants to watch all the matches. And watch how the girls are performing. He wants to see if there is any talent coming through that we haven’t seen. He also sees it as a platform where we can see how these girls perform under pressure,” said Smolenaars.

The HIL, Smolenaars feels, will bridge the lack of high-level competition that he says is a major stumbling block for women’s players in India.

“The difference is that when you play (club competition) in the Netherlands or Germany or Spain, is that you’re playing a high-level match every week for 20-26 weeks a year, depending on how the competition is. And that’s a totally different rhythm than being like us with the national team in Bengaluru, training for six, seven, eight, nine weeks, and then having one tournament for one week or one pro league round of one week, and then you go again and train all over again. We have some 40 players who are in the system of the senior team and another 40 players who are part of the junior set up who will be part of the HIL. That is a huge number,” said Smolenaars, who has previously coached the Dutch junior women’s team as well as KHC Dragons and HC Bloemendaal, which play in the Dutch Hoofdklasse – the highest level of Dutch club hockey.

“When I was junior coach of the Netherlands women’s team, if I wanted to play a good match with my team, I could drive one and a half hours to Belgium or one and a half hours to Germany and we had a good opponent, we could do that during the week. So, that’s a big, big difference in not only the amount of matches they play but also the level of play,” he said.

While the HIL will only be a little more than four weeks long, compared to the multiple-month long calendar of the Dutch league, this comes with its own set of problems.

“If you are going to play multiple games in a week, it’s going to be very physically challenging. We are going to need to have a very good medical staff and we also need to manage recovery and rotation. We cannot have players play all the matches every time and the whole match. It will be tough, especially in the last week or week and a half. It will be tough, for sure. But that’s also something you grow from. Our girls can only grow when they deal with that mental and physical pressure. I think that’s what will make the HIL a great platform for anyone to grow,” he said.

But he can see the benefits of such a format as well.

“The HIL is closer to a tournament, compared to a club season. But it’s a lot longer than a typical tournament. It’s kind of in the middle of the two. There’s probably going to be 10 matches in the league phase and some sort of playoff system. That means 12 or fourteen matches over five weeks. If you have a competition every week, like in Europe, it also limits you in the amount of training that you can do. So, the amount of training that we are doing with the national team is much, much more than like for instance the Dutch or the Germans are doing. Because they can only train one or two days a week and then they have to practise with the clubs. So, there is also a benefit there. It’s going to give them a real boost for the upcoming months and years to grow,” he said.

While he of course wants to win, Smolenaars admitted the main purpose of the HIL will be to prepare a stronger Indian women’s team.

“We are rebuilding now. Rebuilding is rebuilding trust again, rebuilding in the way we play, how we play, how we want to play, offensively, defensively, physically. We have been working on that now since June. One of the areas we have identified where there is a gap between us and the strongest teams is in playing regular high-level matches. The HIL is one way through which we are trying to close that gap. We are also trying to play more matches against strong countries – whether it be through international practice matches or test matches against the top eight countries,” he said.