Despite being held to a 1-1 draw by Saint Kitts and Nevis in the final match of the Hero Tri-Nation Series, India claimed the trophy in which they had won the other match against Mauritius.India’s head coach Stephen Constantine took to the post-match media session to speak about the frantic game that saw many chances being missed. While he was happy with the overall performance, he was understandably disappointed at having been held to a draw.“I am over the moon as you can tell. I thought we had enough chances to finish the game twice, but we didn’t take those chances and in the end, we got stunned which was very disappointing. We need to work on it, but it’s football. It happens. We will take a lesson from this for sure,” he stated.Constantine also highlighted the importance of the youth players, and stressed that they needed more reckoning.“If we are talking about young players, these are the type of games we would like to put them in to give them the experience,” he explained. “Both Halicharan Narzary and Nikhil Poojary are with me through the Under-23 games, so they know what I expect in terms of games and philosophy. This is why I go back to the Under-19s, Under-17s and Under-15s to follow the formula. So, it’s good that I oversee the Under-23s and coach. I don’t play kids for the sake of playing them and I am not interested in giving debuts to kids that I don’t think have the potential.”While the result was not exactly to Constantine’s liking, he emphasised on the importance of games like these and was grateful at the opportunity to be able to play a series like this.“I don’t think we started as brightly as we can, but then I have to think that the last time the players played a 90-minute game was at the end of the (Hero) I-League season in May. The June-July period is a long time not to be playing and that is why I desperately needed these two games. I obviously would like to thank the AIFF for making this possible and IMG Reliance and people connected to them. Because without these games, we were not sure. Now I am sure of certain players,” he said.When asked why Balwant Singh was given a start ahead of Robin Singh for this match, Constantine explained that he wanted his strikers to work hard.“I believe in players doing the work. We obviously need to do more to keep the ball and I thought Robin didn’t do enough in the first half (vs Mauritius) and Balwant had his chance. It was the first time he (Balwant) has played for me and he absolutely made the difference. He had the ball and scored a goal and he shut them down. What we are asking is one of the strikers to get down the midfield.”“Balwant got the start because he deserved it,” he added.However, despite having won the trophy, he pointed out that there was nothing to be overtly happy about.“I think you have to look at the intensity of the game,” he went on to say. For us, they were two friendly games. There is no celebration going on inside with the trophy, no dancing around. It was a tri-nation tournament. We have won it, great! Move on!”
