KLHC held by Sapura...

KUALA Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) suffered another body-blow when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Sapura in the Premier Division Of the Malaysia Hockey League yesterday.
  This came at the back of a 3-4 defeat to Tenaga on Friday, and now the double champions have shed five points and are in danger of losing their League title.
  Izwan Firdaus scored for Sapura off a field attempt in the third minute, and KLHC only recovered in the 55th minute when Azlan Misron tapped in a penalty corner set-piece from the sidelines.
  "This is a terrible weekend as we dropped five points and will now have to wait for favours from other teams to defend our League title.
  "My players looked like they never recovered form the Tenaga defeat, and played too cautiously as they were afraid of making mistakes today (yesterday). This led to them making more mistakes and creating less scoring opportunities when in the semi-circle," said KLHC coach K. Dharmaraj.
  Sapura lost 0-5 to KLHC in the first leg, and even their coach K. Balakrishnan was taken aback by the draw.
   "We were not physically and mentally ready for KLHC in the first leg, ans let in all five goal in the first half itself. Today (yesterday) we scored early and that almost won us the match," said Balakrishnan.
  In another match, Maybank shocked Tenaga Nasional with a Mohamed Irfan field goal in the 10th minute, but the country's No 1 striker Faizal Saari put his side on level terms with a penalty corner goal in the 28th minute. It was his 13th personal goal in six matches.
  Maybank were in control of the match after that, but failed to score the winner and shared the spoils.
  Meanwhile, Malaysia might skip the Asian Champions Trophy after the  Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) changed its dates.
  AHF had scheduled their tournament from Dec 13-21 in Doha, but were forced to shift the dates after FIH included India and Pakistan in the Champions Trophy to be played in Melbourne on Dec 1-9.
  Now, the Asian Champions Trophy has been moved to Dec 20-27, playing over Christmas, and the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) will decide on Sept 23 at the Council meeting whether to play, or skip the tournament.

DIVISION ONE

              P  W  D  L  F  A  Pts
BJSS          4  3  0  1  17 12   9
Thunderbolts  4  2  1  1  7  5    7
Johor HA      3  2  0  1  10 9    6
Armed Forces  3  1  2  0  4  2    5
Uniten        4  1  1  2  8  10   4
UiTM          3  1  0  2  2  6    3
Politeknik    3  0  0  3  6  10   0

PREMIER DIVISION
                  P  W  D  L  F   A  Pts
TNB               6  4  2  0  16  10 14
KLHC              6  4  1  1  26  7  13
Sapura            6  3  1  2  13  11 10
Maybank           6  2  2  2  14  14  8
UniKL             6  1  0  5  11  19  3
Nur Insafi-MBI    6  1  0  5  8   27  3

  RESULTS: Premier Division: Nur Insafi-MBI 0 UniKL 4, KLHC 1 Sapura 1, Tenaga 1 Maybank 1.
  Division One: Uniten 3 BJSS 6.