Former captain Dilip Tirkey reckons that demands of modern hockey are such that Indian hockey team requires a separate defence coach who need not be a foreigner.

'Defence is very important in modern hockey and I have seen lapses in past few tournaments. Defenders and mid-fielders should work hard on it. Defending is not as easy as it appears,' Tirkey told PTI Bhasha.

'I think India needs a defence coach. Chief coach cannot handle everything. Modern hockey is very different as tackling is not easy now. There is an offside rule. A defence expert can teach them technical things like positioning, tackling, re-tackling, footwork, marking in a better way,' the veteran said.

'I don’t think that we need a foreign coach for this. We have former players like Pargat Singh, who had great defending skills,' he said.

Tirkey said that ‘all-rounder’ concept in hockey is good but it is tough to apply this in Indian hockey.

'It’s a good concept but I think it is very tough in Indian context. Teams who have 7-8 world-class players can afford it but not India as we have 2 or 3 world-class players at a time in our team,' he said