The Gurgaon teams top finish in the Haryana State Championship for the National under-16 championship brought relief to the bunch of Sriram School boys who were returning from a forgettable Subroto Cup appearance,failing to clear round one. But coach Keshav Dutt another common thread between the school and the district team credits the failure for their latest success. As a coach Im relieved to see the team winning. When we qualified for the Subroto Cup for the first time this year,people called it a fluke. We couldnt prove them wrong by failing to go through to the second round. This satisfaction of finishing the best among 20 districts,will take away that disappointment. And we learnt from every match played in the Subroto Cup. We realised the gaps with stronger teams in all aspects and tried to improve on that and you can see the result. Perhaps,having the finalistsMizoram and SAI-in the gap helped in most other ways apart from the fact that we lost both matches by huge margins, Dutt said. The coach actually had a sense of changing things in the way the Subroto Cup ended when Sriram School notched up three victories in as many matches and hopes skipper Riday Banerji,Smaran Santharaju,Vedant Nag,Rubin Jacob and Aakash will make the Haryana team for the main round of the Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy starting later this month. Despite early defeats,the boys pulled signed off with three victories including one against Imphal. They just carried on their form and confidence into this tournament, the Premier Skills coach added.
