Sjoerd Marijne is having a spot of well earned rest at home in Holland after what has been a topsy turvy last few weeks. At the start of the month, the 44-year-old Dutchman appeared to have been made the fall guy for the dismal show by the Indian men's hockey team at the Commonwealth Games, where they failed to medal for the first time in 12 years.
He was partly blamed for a lack of communication between himself and the players. Marijne, who had been handed his coaching position in September last year, was shunted back to the women's team, whom he had originally been appointed to coach in February that year.
Given only a couple of weeks with the women's team before the Asian Champions Trophy, Marijne and his squad have done creditably, beating higher ranked China and Japan before eventually losing 1-0 to Korea in the final. Although there are bigger challenges ahead, Marijne was happy about his comeback tournament. "We won from top teams and we did very well. The final we could play better but we have space to improve," he said.
But for that stumble in the final in Donghae, Marijne has had a relatively smooth ride in his second stint with the team. There had been concerns voiced on whether he would be able to earn the trust of the team. His return was seen as being a demotion after his predecessor Harendra Singh had produced a string of strong results with the side, including a gold medal at the Asian Championships. There were also doubts on how the team would adjust to a change of coaching style just two weeks before the Asian Champions Trophy.
Those doubts, Marijne, says were answered immediately by the players themselves. "There was no time for me to change things and at that moment it was also not necessary. I continued to coach them the way I had before. The players specifically asked this," he says.
While he continued from where he had left off, he could tell that the team had definitely improved under Harendra. "They changed in a positive way. They were talking more both inside and outside the pitch about hockey. They were coaching each other too. Their fitness is better too," he says. But Marijne says there was little alien about the way the team played. "They were playing with the same structure I had introduced in the tour of Holland last year. So there wasn't much of a difference," he says.
Though he insists the switch back to coaching the women's team appears to have been seamless, it is clear Marijne still rankles from his final tournament with the men's team. He insists there was nothing fundamentally flawed with his coaching.
"We made an average of 24 circle penetrations in every game (at the Commonwealth Games) That is more than enough to create penalty corners and goals too. That means the structure of the team was good. But if you don't score and give goals very, very easily then you won't win tournaments," he says.
And while the national federation clearly feels strongly about a perceived communication breakdown to add CR Kumar as an assistant to Marijne, the Dutchman believes those original concerns were overstated. "(The question of ) communication with the women and men has never been a problem. If that were the case, it would have been strange that I had won the Asia Cup with the men or finished third at the World League finals with them," he says.
He doesn't expect similar issues to arise with the women. " Of course it is easier when someone talks in their own language, but the women understand me well enough. I can see on the pitch that they understand what I am saying and that is most important," he says.