Aussies not planning on taking prisoners

23/01/2002

THE character of the Malaysian team will come under scrutiny in the Six-
Nation at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil tonight.
Malaysia will come face-to-face with the mighty Aussies and the question
is not of winning, but of damage control.
When the 2002 Kuala Lumpur World Cup begins on Feb 24, Malaysia's first
opponents are Australia and if the Aussies are held to a draw then, it
will kick start Malaysia's campaign in the right direction.
But if they lose, Malaysia still have six other matches in the pool to
make up for lost ground and the damage will not be too great. Such is the
situation of having a tough opener in the World Cup.
So today, the World Cup hosts will get a chance to test the waters and
in all probability, they are going to sink because Australia have proven
to be quite titanic in the Six-Nation so far.
After beating New Zealand 4-2 and Japan 3-1, they were made to fight
tooth-and-nail by World Cup defending champions Holland for a 4-4 draw.
Australian coach, Barry Dancer, predicted one day before the match that it
will end in a draw and he was spot on.
After the Japan match, Dancer said that Holland are wounded after two
defeats (to New Zealand and Pakistan) and they will try and minimise the
damage.
Dancer did his homework well against Holland and his men only gave away
a handful of penalty corners because Bram Lomans - playing his first Six-
Nation match because he got injured in training - would have punished them
if they gave away too many short corners.
Dancer, who was at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil last month
to film all the Champions Challenge matches, has done enough research on
Malaysia and that is really bad news for the hosts.
On the Malaysian front, all is not right because according to coach Paul
Lissek, his charges seem to either forget or take his instructions
lightly.
"I told them many times what variations to use during penalty corners
against New Zealand but the moment they went into the field, they forgot
everything and did whatever they liked.
"Also, Tajol Rosli got confused with a code word used during the penalty
corner, because he associated it with a variation used by the Juniors in
Hobart, and was not at his place when Maninderjit Singh took a shot at the
left of the goal.
"And the stupid mistake by Nasihin Nubli (who lifted his pads and
allowed New Zealand to equalise because he thought the hit was taken from
outside the semicircle) is unforgivable at this level.
"I have already benched one goalkeeper (Roslan Jamaludin) for not
following instructions and now this. If only I had a third goalkeeper,"
lamented Lissek.
It is too late to do anything about the depth on the bench, but it is
still not too late to change the players' attitude towards instructions.
Against Australia tonight, not only skills, but the Malaysian character
will come under the magnifying glass, if not the surgical knife.
jugjet@nstp.com.my
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