New Delhi: Playing with excellent touch and rhythm, ace Indian drag-flicker Sandeep Singh is keen to add at least a dozen more goals to his career tally by the end of ongoing hockey Olympic qualifying tournament.
Sandeep started the pre-Olympic campaign with 118 international goals to his credit and has already scored four goals in India's two victories so far.
"This is a personal goal I have set for myself. I want to score 12 goals in the tournament so that I can finish with 130 goals. I have scored four today and hopefully will score a few more in the coming matches," Sandeep said.
"As the tournament progresses, we will face tougher opponents and I believe we are moving in the right direction," he added.
When asked about converting three short-corners as compared to the one he scored against Singapore, he explained, "We tried a few variations yesterday but it didn't give us desired results. Today, I went for the old-fashioned drag-flick and it yielded results."
The Indian defence, though, still looks a bit shaky and Sandeep admitted that.
"When you are hit on the counter, there are bound to be jittery moments. But we learn from each and every match, we are learning about our mistakes."
"Certainly while saving penalty corners, we need to be a bit more careful and certainly we will keep that in mind for the next match."
Indian coach Michael Nobbs, meanwhile, stressed on peaking at the right time, after the men's team registered its second big win of the qualifiers on Sunday. India thrashed Italy 8-1 in the second game, having beaten Singapore 15-1 in the first match.
"This is not our peak. We have to peak at the right time. We want that we should be at our peak during the final stage. We are improving with each and every match and today Italy played much better than what they did yesterday. Our level was also too high. We would like to take one game at a time and plan accordingly."
"Personally, I am happy that so many players are scoring goals. The key is to have players who can score goals as that's how you win matches."
"Two difficult matches are coming up against France and Poland. We have to take one match at a time. We will continue the rotation policy," the Australian added.
Sandeep Singh, who converted three penalty corners, said the team is in rhythm.
"We are trying out few things but I don't want try everything now that the team is in the rhythm in the last two matches. We are now planning for the big matches against France and Poland, against whom the defence will be tested," he said.
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