Malaysia concerned, but won't lose sleep over it

18/07/2003

SOUTH Africa, ranked lowest in the six-team Champions Challenge which
begins tomorrow at the Randburg Hockey Stadium, held South Korea 3-3 in a
friendly match yesterday, and it looks like Malaysia will face their
toughest hurdle in the opening match itself.
This is a new South African team, robust like the New Zealanders and
committed like the South Koreans - and their new coach Paul Revington has
plans to take his team to the top level before his contract expires in
2006.
Malaysia's chief coach Paul Lissek watched the South Africa-South Korea
friendly yesterday, and was all smiles as he detected a chink in South
Africa's defence.
"The South Africans have improved much since we last played them in the
2001 Champions Challenge in Kuala Lumpur. This set of players are very
dedicated, hard runners and their defence is very stout," said Lissek
yesterday.
"But I detected something which we can capitalised in our opening
encounter against the hosts. We (with assistant coach Yahya Atan) reviewed
the video recording of the friendly and have come up with a plan on how to
get off to a winning start."
South Africa were awarded four penalty corners in yesterday's friendly
and scored from three of them, signalling their ambitions to make the most
of home turf advantage.
"From what I saw, our players will have to release the ball early
because every time a South Korean had the ball, three to six South
Africans surrounded him and forced a back pass," said Lissek.
"The South African players are also very quick on the counter attack,
something our defenders (Nor Azlan Bakar, S. Kuhan, and K. Gobinathan)
will have to be very careful with."
The national players went on a morning jog and then had a friendly match
with South Korea in the evening to acclimatise themselves with the weather
and the artificial pitch in Randburg.
"None of the players displayed any signs of being nervous or of being
unwell or are injured. The team doctor has placed a `no business' sign on
his door, and this is a very good start to our campaign in South Africa,"
said team manager Zulkifli Abbas.
Malaysia finished fourth in the inaugural edition of the Champions
Challenge at the Bukit Jalil Hockey Stadium.
Malaysia won three-in-a-row in the pool matches, even beating eventual
champions India 2-1, and needed only a draw against either South Africa or
Argentina to reach the final but blew their chances with a pathetic
display at the final hurdle.
In South Africa, Malaysia open their campaign against the hosts tomorrow
and then take on New Zealand on Sunday.
(END)