It's KL again, but only barely

01/11/2002

KUALA Lumpur landed their 14th Razak Cup title last night when they
scraped past Johor 2-1 at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.
The Razak Cup, incepted in 1961, has been dominated by KL but it was not
an easy sixth consecutive victory for the City boys although they paraded
almost the entire national side which beat Pakistan 4-2 on penalty strokes
for the recent Asian Games Bronze medal.
Johor were a determined side, and never gave up till the end, but the
fitter KL robbed them of a glorious outing.
And KL will keep dominating the Razak Cup for the next decade, if the
Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) competitions committee does not make
drastic canges to the present tournament rules which allows players to
represent any team, regardless of their state of origin.
Johor played a superb match but KL defenders Nor Saiful Zaini and Nor
Azlan Bakar were simply too good, and with the nation's No 1 goalkeeper
Roslan Jamaluddin between the posts, the first half ended as predicted.
KL won three penalty corners but Nasihin Nubli stood his ground.
However, in the 13th minute, Chua Boon Huat dribbled on the sideline and
caught Nasihin on the wrong foot.
The ball was squared to the centre, and an onrushing Tajol Rosli drew
first blood for KL. Johor, to their credit, never gave up and their
counter attacks were deadly but Robert Alacantra made too many mistakes in
the KL semicircle eventhough he was well fed by Lim Chiow Chuan and
Chairil Anwar.
KL got their second goal on the run of play when Chua took a reverse
stick shot in the 30th minute. The ball went past Nasihin and any hope of
a Johor fightback almost vanished from the final.
KL came out looking for the kill in the second half but the Johor
defence, marshalled by former skipper Sarjit Singh, played well and in the
45th minute, the score stood at 2-0.
But two minutes later, Johor shocked the defending champions with a
swift counterattack. There was a fault at the top of the semicircle and
Lim took the free hit which was deflected home by Alacantra who made up
for his poor first half performance.
The fire was back in Johor and they threw everything upfront looking for
the equaliser and the 100-odd crowd was solidly behind them, looking for a
fairytale ending.
Johor pinned KL in their own semicirle for long periods, with the ball
screeming from left to right but there were no takers as deflection
specialist Chairil Anwar decided to play deep in defence instead of
positioning himself in the semicircle.
Johor pushed forward with all their might but time was not on their side
and the horn blew, handing KL RM8,000 and Johor RM5,000.
National Juniors capped their Razak Cup outing on a high note when they
hammered Perak 8-0 in the third-fourth placing match and pocketed the
RM2,000 prize money.
The first half was a cautious affair and the Juniors only sounded the
board once in the 27th minute when S. Vatu Malia scored a penalty corner
goal.
But in the second half, the Juniors still looked fresh while Perak gave
up after three goals were scored in a spate of five minutes. The first was
by Fairuz Hamsani (43rd), followed by Ikmal Abdul Jabbar (47th) and P.
Prabhakaran (48th).
It was plain sailing from the Juniors after that and they increased the
tally with goals from Ikmal (51st, 58th), Fairuz Hamsani (54th) and
Redzuan Nasir (68th).
Awards - Man of the Tournament: Azlan Misron (National Juniors); Man of
Match: Nasihin Nubli (Johor); Fairplay: Kuala Lumpur.
(END)