Like after every Olympic mega-failure in hockey, the post-mortems have begun in all quarters. Players are blaming the coach, the media and public are talking of politics within the team. But the fact of the matter is the team flopped miserably and didn’t even perform to 20 per cent of its potential. Four matches lost,one drawn and one won out of the six played (till Wednesday) — it couldn’t have got any worse than this.

To talk of the villains first, one has to point a finger at the forwardline. Over the years, we have depended heavily on the likes of Dhanraj Pillay, Baljit Dhillon, Gagan Ajit Singh, Deepak Thakur and Prabhjot Singh to put pressure on the opposition. Butat the Olympic Hockey Centre in Athens, our tried andtested quintet didn’t set a foot right.

Forget individual brilliance, these experiencedmen made such basic errors, I had to rub my eyes tobelieve what I was seeing. They failed to trap routine balls, lost possession all too easily, and didn’t bother to fall back and lend a helping hand to the defence. All this was so uncharacteristic of our forwardline, which had been our great strength in thepast.

As a consequence, there was just too much pressure on our rear-line. In Jugraj Singh’s absence,we had to pick young Sandeep Singh because of his prowess with drag-flicks from penalty corner situations. But, unfortunately, he seemed to have got overawed by the occasion. Harpal Singh and William Xalco took turns in filling up Sandeep’s slot, leaving Dilip Tirkey to shoulder most of the burden. And I must say the skipper came outwith his reputation enhanced.

The only other player to come out with flying colours was goalkeeper Adrian D’Souza. In fact, had Tirkey and D’Souza not produced stellar performances, we may have faced a bigger humiliation by being pushed to the lowest rung (ninth to 12th spot). D’Souza got a look-in during the Duesseldorf meet after Devesh Chauhan had a horrendous time in the Holland four-nation tourney, and he took his chance with both hands.

Talking of the half-line, Ignace Tirkey wasworkmanlike and Viren Rasquinha played within his limitations. Vikram Pillay was good when he didn’t try to hang on to the ball for too long. He must get rid of this unhealthy over-dribbling tendency to emerge as a force to reckon with.

The age-old malady of panicking towards the closing stages of a match and letting in crucial goals continued to dog India. We lost to Australia and NewZealand by one-goal margins, and shared point with Argentina, which happened to be our worst game. It’s unfair to blame the coach for the players’ failure tokeep nerves in the final moments. It’s a mental block which the Indian players need to overcome quickly.

If at all one were to criticise Gerhard Rach, it will be for playing Gagan Ajit at the right-wing position. This boy is an out-and-out centre-forward and should have been allowed to stay at his original position.

The coach also switched Harpal from right-half to left-half, even full-back. I personally believe too much changing doesn’t do any good to a player.

With the benefit of hindsight, I’ll have to say that the sacking Rajinder Singh barely a month before the Olympics was a mistake. He had been with this set of players for a very long time, and should have been continued till, at least, the Athens Games.

The dismal results in the Holland four-nation tournament a month before the Olympics probably made the IHF officials so panicky they decided to appoint Rach as chief coach.

Four years ago at the Sydney Games, too, we didn’t achieve our cherished goal of making the last four. But we did come agonisingly close. We played as a unit and fought till the last hooter.

In Athens, the words ‘fight’ and ‘teamwork’ were missing from the psyche of all Indian players save two or three. Neither was any individual brilliance on view —generally an Indian trademark, win or lose.

In modern hockey, no team can afford to carry a single passenger. At the Athens hockey competition, India were carrying far too many of them.