Lucknow: Coach Ranbir Singh Khokhar says his Steelers side will not let past results impact the team morale as they prepare to face UP Yoddha at the Babu Banarasi Indoor Stadium,  in Lucknow, on Saturday. After a pulsating tie against Tamil Thalaivas on Wednesday, the Steelers are currently one point outside the playoff positions, behind Dabang Delhi K.C. who have played two games more.

“The draw against Tamil Thalaivas tells us that we need to be a little more focused on the mat and need to work on our coordination.  We need to be tactical and hold our nerves. Our draws against Gujarat and Thalaivas were two completely different results - with Gujarat the draw saved us a loss but with Thalaivas, the draw denied us victory,” said Khokhar.

Khokhar spoke about his side’s the need to work on avoiding mistakes and building on points gained in initial stages of the games. “We need to avoid small errors and build on winning initial points - leads which we unfortunately did not maintain the last time.  But as a team we know how to learn from mistakes and when you understand and learns from errors, there is always a greater scope for improvement,” he added.

Speaking about the opposition, Khokhar praised the Yoddha side’s experience and maintained that the Steelers will have to be at their best if they are to take anything away from the clash against the Udaya Kumar-coached side, who are currently in third place in Zone B.

“UP are a strong outfit and have a few experienced players in their ranks. Their new recruits have also been very effective. Our team has practiced hard and is concentrating on two things – avoiding careless errors and execution of player-to-player strategies,” he added.

The Yoddha side enters this clash on the back of a draw, after their 27-27 result against Patna Pirates in Ahmedabad. Now at home in Lucknow, Khokhar believes the Steelers will have to rectify errors from previous encounters. “Our defence was exceptionally good against Thalaivas but we need to work on our raids. While Ashish (Chhokar) and even Surjeet (Singh) had decent outings, there was a lack of precision overall and we’ll look to rectify that. We are paying attention to them, and us because both are very crucial”

The match begins at 9 pm and will be telecast live on Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports HD 2, Star Sports First and HotStar.