New Year Bang for Juniors

THE NEW year will start with a bang for the National Juniors, as they will be involved in a Four-Nation tussle in the Australian Youth Olympics Festival Jan 14-18 in Sydney.
And they are expected to be tested to the limit because Junior World Cup runners-up Australia, India and Great Britain will also be using it to test their youth for the Junior World Cup, which Malaysia and Singapore will co-host on June 7-21, and will involve 20 teams playing in two groups.
The juniors, who took part in the Malaysia Hockey League, were far from impressive, and there is still much work to be done before one can call them an outfit.
Realising this, the Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) have planned for a series of team-building sessions, and military training is also on the cards.
“The juniors will be involved in team-building sessions because right now, we (MHF) notice that they are still a loose outfit. Hopefully, once they undergo motivation sessions and military-style training, their understanding will be much better,” said MHF secretary Hashim Yusoff.
Fitness is still a problem, and chief coach K. Rajan will be helped by personal from the National Sports Institute (NSI) in this area.
“Rajan will receive help from NSI fitness trainers to get the boys in shape, and we also plan to hold a four-nation in March, at the tournament venue as a final test for both the teams and logistics as well as the artificial pitch in Johor,” said Hashim.
Hashim also said a joint meeting with Singapore will be held on Jan 10, where a clearer picture will emerge on what has been done, and what needs to be done to avoid hiccups in the tournament.
“The management committee has endorsed Tan Sri Anwar Mohd Nor (former MHF president) as the tournament chair man, and after January 10, we will finalise more details.:
The teams which have qualified for the World Cup are defending champions Argentina, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, India, South Korea, Pakistan, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, England, Poland, Russia, Chile, US and New Zealand.
And the juniors will be involved in a few friendlies with a South Korean University side, after which they will head to Europe to play Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.