Indian hockey is gearing up for a big challenge in 2026, with the World Cup and Asian Games separated by less than three weeks. For men’s team head coach Craig Fulton, it presents a puzzle to solve because he can’t afford to ignore one for the other. A World Cup medal has long eluded Indian hockey, while Asian Games winner qualifies for LA 2028.
Speaking to The Indian Express after India’s recent block of matches plus training at Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and in South Africa, Fulton elaborated on how he’s planning to tackle the upcoming schedule.
Excerpts below:
Every time you go to South Africa, there is something unique that you plan for the team…
In South Africa, we had quite a big focus on the off-field team build and sessions with Paddy (Upton), which worked well, and the performance and the training with the goalkeeper coach also worked. We had the Lion’s Head trek. It’s quite a steep incline. It’s on the same height as Table Mountain. So now we’ve done both of those. On off days, we did Lawn Bowls, which is a great, unbelievable game. And then we did surfing in Muizenberg, where we taught the players how to surf, because some don’t really swim. Then we had a 40K mountain bike ride through the mountains in Stellenbosch on the way to Franschhoek, which was really difficult, but rewarding. We had a couple of falls (chuckles) it was very enjoyable. Just putting a marker down for the year that’s to come in 2026. Since Paddy lives in Cape Town, it’s a lot easier to do these exercises. The message from Paddy and I is that bigger the dream, bigger the team. We’re going to need a lot of the right people in the right seats doing the right things more often than not for us to be successful.
Craig Fulton (PHOTO: Hockey India)
What’s HIL’s role in building the bigger squad for 2026’s workload?
We have a really competitive squad now. But now just to open it up again to see if we haven’t missed anyone and give someone an opportunity from maybe the Under-21 World Cup for different combinations. HIL is a different kind of tournament. Certain players will be playing out of position, which is also interesting. I’m looking to make a selection for a new World Cup and Asia Games squad. We have Pro League coming up early February, with four games in India. It’s quite a difficult schedule because we only have five days between playing in India and playing in Hobart.
How do you plan to tackle that?
We’re possibly going to have two groups. One group will play the first leg in Rourkela, those four matches and another group will already go ahead to Hobart because we don’t have enough time. To take the same group, travel 35 hours and then have three days to be ready for a time zone change to get to Hobart is not possible. So we’ll do this block and see how we go with this, expose a few more players because we’ll need a few more players to do the World Cup-Asian Games block. If we want to do it properly, then we’ll need a few more players. When you think of World Cup and Asian Games three weeks apart, it could set a blueprint for how we want to approach that. We also have to split our staff, which is not the most optimal way of doing things. Some additional help has already been authorised by Hockey India.
How do you prepare to peak for this schedule?
We have two blocks that we have to peak for. One is the World Cup, one is the Asian Games. If you said to European hockey teams that you’re going to play the World Cup and three weeks later, you’re playing the Euros, which is your qualifying tournament for LA2028, they’d say you’re mad, they’d say we’re not playing. But because it’s Asian hockey and we are in this situation, we have to make the best plan possible. It’s not straightforward because you can’t just take one group and just do both. We’ve been building towards this for a while. It’s just how to use it now and use it properly.
India’s men’s hockey team coach Craig Fulton. (Hockey India)
At HIL, all eight teams have Indian captains, which must help with your leadership group as well…
That’s what we’re always looking for, even in our own environment, even without HIL. And I think it gets exposed in Hockey India League, which is a better thing because now it’s almost made official. You don’t really need a captain’s band to be a leader. That’s more our conversation with the players. It’s really about doing your job, doing it well and inspiring others to be better. When you create solutions and you help your teammates, you become a leader because people will come to you for answers. And that’s what we’re looking for during a match. If things aren’t exactly how we want them, who do we go to to try and help solve that problem in a five-minute block? And if no one puts their hand up, then we’ve got a problem.
