Selangor put Perak's hopes on hold

26/10/2002

SELANGOR dashed Perak's hopes of becoming the first team to qualify for
the semi-finals of the Razak Cup at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit
Jalil yesterday.
Perak, with six points from two consecutive wins, had only themselves to
blame as they relied too much on penalty corners and paid dearly for it.
Now they face the daunting task of beating Kuala Lumpur in their last
group a match if they want to reach the semi-finals as Selangor have a
better chance with easier opponents in Malacca on Sunday and Penang on
Monday to qualify for the last four.
The top spot in Group A naturally belongs to Kuala Lumpur which is made
up of almost all the national players who won bronze at the recent Asian
Games in Busan.
Perak relied heavily on K. Gobinathan, who has scored five penalty
corner goals in their last two matches, but Selangor played a clever game
and restricted Perak to only one penalty corner in the first half which
was stopped by goalkeeper Mohamed Firdaus Ramli.
There was plenty of action in the first half, but most of it was
concentrated in the middle of the field as both sides failed to use the
flanks to break free.
In the second half, Perak received eight penalty corners and Selangor
goalkeper Firdaus was in sterling form to stop every attempt made by
Gobinathan and Mohamed Hadi.
Perak became desperate and in the fifth penalty corner, they even tried
out a variation where Hadi stopped the ball away from Gobinathan, who
was the target of Selangor runners in all the previous penalty corners,
and took the hit himself, but the ball went wide.
Selangor became more deadly in their attack and in the 47th minute, a
cross from Mohamed Redaza was connected home by Mohamed Faizal after which
Selangor packed their defence and managed to defend their slim lead for
the next 23 minutes.
"The strongest team in our group was Kuala Lumpur and we were fortunate
to have met them in our first match. although we lost 5-1 to Kuala Lumpur
I knew we still have a good chance of making the semi-finals if we beat
Perak today (yesterday) so we devised a strategy to restrict penalty
corners because Perak did not have god forwards and relied only on penalty
corners for goals.
"The strategy worked and now we have two more matches in hand to qualify
for the semis," said Selangor stand-in manager Joseph de Silva.
Joseph attributed their tight defending to his young goalkeeper Mohamed
Firdaus Ramli.
"Firdaus played a superb match today (yesterday) and saved more than
eight point-blank shots to hand us the three points. We have two good
goalkeepers and I tried out Saiful Azhar in the match against Kuala Lumpur
and he too played well to keep the score low," said Joseph.
Perak coach Manjit Singh was naturally disappointed with the outcome but
said they will try their best to topple Kuala Lumpur.
"We threw away a chance to make the semi-finals today (yesterday) but we
still have one more match against Kuala Lumpur. Although it will be an
uphill battle for the entire 70 minutes, we will give our best shot. Who
knows, maybe the other teams in the group might do us a favour," said
Manjit.
In the other match Malacca shocked Penang 5-1 with goals from Khairudin
Ghani (20th), Ahmad Anuar (24th, 49th), Mihardy Nawawi (45th, 59th). The
Penang goal was scored by Atul Kumar in the 11th minute.
Today (all matches at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil): Kedah
v National Juniors (4pm, pitch 1), Armed Forces v Negri Sembilan (6pm,
pitch 1), Johor v Pahang (8pm, pitch 1).
Tomorow: Selangor v Malacca (4pm, pitch 1), Kuala Lumpur v Penang
(5.30pm, pithc 2), Negri Sembilan v Pahang (6pm, pitch 1), National
JUniors v Johor sapm, pitch 2), Kedah v Armed Forces (8.15pm, pitch 1).
(END)