"I think we came back from our South Africa Tour feeling mentally and physically fresh." - Harmanpreet Singh

Indian men's hockey team captain Harmanpreet Singh believes that team activities during the recent tour of South Africa made them stronger.

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India toured South Africa for a four-nation series where they registered a win against the host team. Against France, the team got one win and one match was drawn while against Netherlands the team had to face defeat.

On Sunday, India defeated Ireland 4-0 in their final match of the home leg of the FIH Hockey Pro League. India is currently at third place in the points table after Netherlands and Australia. Expressing their gratitude to the hockey lovers of Odisha, India skipper Harmanpreet Singh said, "Playing in Rourkela is always special for us. The incredible support we got energised our performance and we have continued to be unbeaten here, without losing a single game in regulation time. We are happy to keep up this unbeaten record in Rourkela."

Harmanpreet Singh said after Sunday's win, "I think we came back from our South Africa Tour feeling mentally and physically fresh. We did a lot of team-building activities there that made us a stronger unit. I think we performed well here, and stood up to the challenge posed by top teams of the world,"

India started the home leg of the Pro League with a 4-1 win over Spain in Bhubaneswar. After this, Netherlands were defeated 4-2 in the shoot-out. Although India lost 4-6 to Australia, they beat Ireland 1-0 before coming to Rourkela.

Agreeing with Harmanpreet Singh, vice-captain Hardik Singh said, "I think we showed a lot of character in these matches, both in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. We built on our performance from match to match and we considerably improved our defence. These matches were crucial in our preparations for the Paris Olympics and now we will go back to the drawing board and analyse how we can further up our performance from here on."

India will further their Pro League commitments with matches against the hosts and Argentina in Belgium from May 22 and then against Germany and Great Britain in London from June 1.