MHL a big flop...

THE Malaysian Hockey League (MHL) would be remembered for all the wrong reasons this season, as not only the quality of play was bad, but also, not a single new player was spotted among the 13 teams.
  The 30 plus eight standby-players were all internationals of former players from the Premier Division, while not a single new player was spotted in Division One.
  "Actually, not only were there no new players spotted in the Premier Division to be drafted into the senior training squad, even I did not see any budding player in Division One to be included into the juniors training squad," said juniors coach K. Dharmaraj.
  Dharmaraj's revelation was damning, but accurate, as even chief coach Paul Revington had to dig up six former players to complete his training squad.
  As predicted early in the season, Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) romped away with the double, and the only resistance they got was from their own players who bungled chances against Tenaga Nasional and lost 3-4 in the League.
  The TNB Cup final showed their true strength as they brushed aside Tenaga 3-0 with all the goals coming in the first half.
  "The MHL is no longer a challenge for me as I have guided my side to seven League and four Overall titles (including three consecutive doubles).
  "My mission now is to help Malaysia to their best ever finish in the Junior World Cup," said Dharmaraj whose charges sailed away with the Junior Asia Cup gold to qualify for the Junior World Cup.
   The umpiring side was equally bad as tournament director V. Rajamanickam said that only six umpires were up to the mark, and in future, there may be a need to bring in foreign umpires for the MHL.
  And it did not help matters when Nur Insafi wrote in a damning letter alleging that the umpiring, overall, was poor. The MHL technical committee not only accepted Nur Insafi's letter, but also returned their RM300 deposit as it found the team's grouses had grounds.
  The fact that the tournament director had to change an umpire because Maybank stood by the sideline and refused to play if that particular individual blew -- also said volumes about the state of umpiring in the country.
  The MHL Rules Book was a good indicator on how the league was run this season, as only the cover had the year 2012 printed on it, while its content were the same as 2011 and somebody forgot to change the year in all the pages inside.
  Copy and paste, that's how bogus the MHL felt this year, as only vice-presidents S. Shamala and K. Gobinathan watched one match each, while the Malaysian Hockey Confederation president and all his other Lieutenants did not bother to attend their own tournament, not even the TNB Cup and President's Cup finals.