Difficult to deny Tenaga

07/08/2002

TENAGA Nasional Bhd and Malaysia Sports School have each lost two key
players for the crucial semi-final first leg match of the MHF-Milo-
Admiral-NSC Junior League today, but Tenaga will march in as the
favourites to make the final.
But Malaysia Sports School are very comfortable with the underdog tag.
"I personally prefer the underdog's tag because the pressure will be
less on my players while Tenaga, who have 10 straight wins in their bag,
will have to live up to everyone's expectations," said Malaysia Sports
School coach V. Muraleedharan.
Malaysia Sports School have lost Fakhrulrazi Baharuddin and Fikri Bassar
and Tenaga Nasional Riduan Nasir and Azlan Misron to the national team for
four Test matches in Busan, Korea.
In all, Paul Lissek has selected six players from the Junior Hockey
League to prepare for the Asian Games. The other two are Megat Azrafiq
Megat Termizi and Ismail Abu of Telekom Pahang.
Tenaga could feel the absence of their star duo today because Azlan and
Riduan are key players in midfield and attack but despite this, they
should come through without any fuss.
During the Tenaga-Olak-MPK match last Saturday, Tenaga coach K. Rajan
benched the duo after taking a 6-0 lead and suddenly, Olak found more
space to attack.
"It was open for all to see that without Azlan and Riduan during the
last 15 minutes of the Olak match, the team did suffer a little. But I am
confident the rest of the players are ready to take on a bigger role in
the absence of the duo," said Rajan yesterday.
Tenaga has a balanced side and almost all their players have big match
experience.
On the Junior Hockey League, national selectors Yahya Atan, Stephhen van
Huizen and Lissek had a huge pool of players to choose from because each
of the 22 teams had at least two players good enough for national training
call-up.
"We have selected 30 players from the JHL of which more than half are
new faces and will be placed in the various age-groups. Some of them will
also see action in the under-18 tornament in Poland later this month,"
said van Huizen.
Overall, the top-five teams from each group showed great potential to
mature into good sides but the same can't be said about the bottom five.
That is why the Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) has decided to have
Division One and Two next year. But their fear is that next year there
might not be 22 teams in the JHL.
After the Malaysia Games funding has dried up, some of the teams may
just throw in the towel.
Classification matches - Today: Perak Malays v Taiping (Azlan Shah
Stadium, 5.15pm); MSSKL v Malay Mail (Tun Razak Stadium, 6pm); AFATS v
Synergy HC (Tun Razak Stadium, 8pm); Kerian v Johor FC (Azlan Shah
Stadium, 6pm); SMK Datuk Taha v SAB College (Malacca Hockey Stadium,
5.15pm).
(END)