Controversy mars KL victory

25/01/2003

UMPIRE Jaswant Singh brought disrepute to his profession when he blew for goal eventhough everyone at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil saw that the ball had hit the side netting and went out in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore match yesterday.
And KL's K. Regan, who took the shot, unsportingly claimed for goal and
Singapore were robbed of a golden opportunity in the National Under-21
tournament yesterday.
KL moved into the semi-finals with four consecutive wins and a match in
hand against Malacca today - but the incident soured their success to a
certain degree.
The score was 0-0 until the 33rd minute blunder by Jaswant which even
caught the MHF officials who were shocked by the judgement. But since the match had already re-started form the centre after a brief protest by
Singapore, the goal stood and the only option left for Singapore was to
make a protest and ask for a replay because the goal disrupted the flow of
the match. But singapore did not lodge at protest at the end of the match.
KL did not need help from umpires to win matches because they have
practically the cream of the country turning out for them and scored six
more goals after that.
It was not the first blunder by the umpire as a few minutes earlier, he
had disallowed a goal scored by KL's Tajol Rosli eventhough the ball was a clear six feet inside the semi-circle, but the umpire was adamant that the shot was taken outside the semi-circle.
Defending champions KL were held very well by Singapore until the
unfortunate "goal", which disrupted their match and they collapsed like
dominoes in the second half.
New South Wales AIS from Australia became the fist team to qualify for
the semi-finals when they side-stepped Penang 5-0 with goals from Eli
Matheson (8th), Alex HArdman (45th, 49th), Mark Patterson (55th) and Trent McDonald (58th).
Perak scraped past the weakest team in the tournament Kelantan 2-1 for
their third win, but they are not expected to make the semi-finals as they
face KL in their last match.
The same predictament is faced by Malacca who beat Armed Forces 7-0 but confront their stiffest challenge when they face KL today.
The chances of Malacca losing to KL is great which means Johor might pip them as the second team from Group A to reach the semi-finals as they have two weak sides in Kelantan (today) and Armed Forces (tomorrow) to beat and advance.
RESULTS AT A GLANCE
PERAK 2 KELANTAN 1
R. Prem Kumar (26th) Mohamed Al-Qawi Haqq (67th)
Riduan Nasir (30th)
NSW AIS 5 PENANG 0
Eli Matheson (8th)
Alex Hardman (45th, 49th)
Mark Patterson (55th)
Trent McDonald (58th)
KUALA LUMPUR 7 SINGAPORE 0
K. Regan (33rd)
Engku Abdul Malek (42nd)
Tajol Rosli (46th, 49th)
Redza Maadun (57th, 60th)
Azlan Misron (62nd)
MALACCA 7 ARMED FORCES 0
Nazmi Kamaruddin (30th,
62nd, 63rd)
Shafiq Amir (35th, 48th)
Nor Hamezi Omar (43rd, 54th)
(END)