Friday, February 8, 2013

Three Irish Tests for Revington and his men..

THE Malaysian senior hockey team will play three Test matches against a visiting Ireland side starting on Sunday at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.
   The series were planned to give some veteran, as well as young players, a chance to show their progress since coach Paul Revington roped them in for the Champions Challenge I in Argentina last year.
    Seasoned players who had earlier quit but were named in the Test series are Amin Rahim, Chua Boon Huat, Jivan Mohan and Ismail Abu.
  The Second Test will be on Monday, while the Third Test on Wednesday.
   “The Test series are important for the coaching staff to expose some players and assess their progress as many regulars are not available.”
   “We have left out goalkeeper S. Kumar and Faizal (Saari) who are playing in the Hockey India League, while regulars Nabil (Fiqri), Izwan (Firdaus) and Hafifi (Hafifiz) are carrying injuries. Baljit Singh is also on leave after getting married last week,” said team manager George Koshy.
    The national team will play in two important tournaments this year in the World Hockey League semi-finals in Johor Baru and the Asia Cup in Ipoh.
    Both the tournaments offer tickets to the 2014 World Cup in the Netherlands.
   Meanwhile, Kuala Langat were thrown out of the Junior Hockey League for failing to show up for two matches.
    The Selangor side failed to show up for a rain-postponed schedule against Kuala Lumpur Sports School and then against Politeknik KPT.
    The Malaysian Hockey Confederation competitions committee decided to erase their previous match results from Division Two, Group B, and refer them to the Disciplinary Board.
     The Division two semi-finals between Kelantan and Politeknik and Kuala Lumpur Sports School and Anderson Juniors will be held on Feb 15, while the final will be on Feb 17.
    The finalists from Division Two will then move up to the Overall title home-and-away quarter-finals on Feb 22 and waiting for them from Division One are six teams in league champions Tengku Mahkota Ismail Sports School, Petaling Jaya City Council, UniKL Young Guns, Andersons, SSTMI Juniors and Malacca High School.
    MALAYSIA: Amir Farid, Azlan Misron, Chua Boon Huat, Faiz Helmi, Ismail Abu, Jivan Mohan, Kairulnizam Ibrahim (gk), Hazrul Faiz, Sukri Mutalib, Izad Hakimi, Fitri Saari, Shahrun Nabil (capt), Amin Rahim, Azammi Adabi, Ramadan Rosli, Amerullah Aziz, Marhan Jalil, Razie Rahim, Norhizzat Sumantri, Roslan Jamaluddin (gk), Tengku Ahmad Tajudin.