Jagdish Kumble: The morale of the team was great

Bengal Warriors defeated Jaipur Pink Panthers 39-28 on Saturday courtesy an all-round performance from Mahesh Goud. Bengal Warriors were represented at the post-match press conference by captain PO Surjeet Singh and coach Jagdish Kumble. Jaipur Pink Panthers had captain Anup Kumar and coach Srinivas Reddy attending the press conference for them.

Bengal Warriors

Q: How do you see the game today?

Jagdish Kumble: I was sure that we are going to win today. The morale of the team since before the match was great. The entire team played their part. We could have won by a better margin, but it was a good game.

Q: We saw Super Tackles by Adarsh T and you. How do you see your defence shaping up?

Surjeet Singh: In the game against U.P. Yoddha our defence was sloppy. We gave away bonus points and had a few lapses. We spoke about it and changed a few things. We had planned to let the raiders deep and not rush for the tackle. We did that, and it paid off.

Q: Your raiding was exceptional too. What are your thoughts?

Jagdish Kumble: Yes, it was a balanced performance. After the game against Dabang Delhi K.C., we needed to change a couple of things. We learned from the game that we lost. We used Ran Singh well today, which was the plan.

Q: Your next game is against Patna Pirates. How do you see that contest?

Surjeet Singh: Pardeep Narwal is a fine raider. We have some time so will plan against him. The important thing is to execute those plans and if we do that just like we did today, we will have a good game. 

Jaipur Pink Panthers

Q: What happened with the Super Tackles?

Srinivas Reddy: In the game against the Puneri Paltan, there was a chance of an All-Out with just two players remaining, but we suffered back-to-back super tackles when we could have made a comeback. Unfortunately, we made the same mistakes today.

Q: Do you think there was an issue with the raiding?

Anup Kumar: We could have done better in the Super Tackle situations. That was the main reason for the loss. We are repeating our mistakes. Ran Singh raided against a two-man defence. He isn’t primarily a raider. We must change our tactics. We have an in-form raider in Deepak Hooda. We will plan before our next game.

Q: How do you look at all the players?

Srinivas Reddy: They are playing as a unit. Since the last 2-3 games, when we are supposed to get the opposition All-Out our raiders are committing errors. That has been our biggest setback. As far our defence is concerned, we are defending well in the beginning, but we are losing the advantage in crunch situations which is a concern. We are giving up points in pressure situations and that is why are losing the games.