Coaching should be left to the coaches: Charlesworth

Ric Charlesworth, one of the greatest hockey minds, feels all is not lost for the Indian team ahead of next year's Rio Olympics but called on the administrators of the game in the country to stop sacking coaches needlessly.
Charlesworth's comments come after another foreign coach, Paul van Ass, was sacked unceremoniously five months into his three-year contract following a spat between Hockey India chief Narinder Batra and the Dutchman during the World League Semifinals in Belgium.
"You are lucky I suppose that Roelant Oltmans (now the chief coach) is still there. He has been known to the players and has been around for a while (as High Performance Manager) but yes too much chopping and changing can't be good for the team," Charlesworth told PTI today.

The Western Australian, who is both a World Cup winning player and coach, knows what it is like to coach in India, having coached in the Hockey India League, besides spending tough 10 months in 2008 as technical director of the national team.
"In the end, you should leave the coaching up to the coaches. You put them incharge and you let them do it. There have been good things happening in Indian hockey of late but then you hear of something like this (Van Ass ouster) happening," said Charlesworth, who resigned after coaching the Kookaburras to success at the 2014 Hockey World Cup in the Netherlands.

He fails to understand why Van Ass' predecessors Jose Brasa and Terry Walsh were shown the door.

"Jose Brasa did a good job, he did not last. Then you had Michael Nobbs and Terry Walsh, who also did a very good job and team was making progress under him before another change took place. It is very difficult to build a team while all that is happening around you."
Charlesworth, however, thinks players will not be affected much by the latest controversy to hit Indian hockey.
"The players can handle it, that is not a huge issue. It has not happened one month before the Olympics. The Olympics is still an year away. They have a better preparation chance than anyone else," he said while referring to India's Asian Games gold that secured their Olympic qualification two years before the Rio Games.