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By Singapore Hockey Federation PAKISTAN are the champions of the 2nd Boys U16 Asia Cup 2013 after emerging triumphant in the final with a 5-3 victory over Bangladesh in front a capacity crowd of close to 1,000 supporters.
In the end, the title came down to the two strongest teams throughout the four-day event and the final showed that the two were on par with one another.
The event was the official debut of the new Hockey 5 format and overall, it was a success with offense and speed ruling the action on the field.
In the first period, Pakistan’s quality clearly shone through as they scored two goals in just seven minutes.
However, Pakistan’s lead was cancelled out just minutes into the second period. Bangladesh earned a penalty and Pakistan were dealt a big blow when two of their players were given yellow cards. The bookings forced Pakistan to play with just three players for two minutes of play. Bangladesh converted their penalty and made use of their two-man advantage to level the score at 2-2.
After serving the stipulated two minutes, Pakistan welcomed back the full squad of five and put in a disciplined performance to see them through to a 5-3 win.
In other matches, Malaysia claimed bronze after beating Japan 2-1 in the 3rd and 4th Placing Match.
In the 5th and 6th Placing Match, it took a penalty shootout for Chinese-Taipei to clinch 5th spot. They beat Korea 1-0 on shootout after the match had ended 5-5.
Individual honours were also given out to three outstanding players.
Muhammad Atiq of Pakistan was named the Top Goalscorer with 20 goals to his name.
Mhommad Ashraful Islam of Bangladesh won the Player of the Tournament trophy while Malaysia’s Ammad Fahmi Azhar Ruddin earned the Goalkeeper of the Tournament award.
TERENGGNANU team manager Saberi Salleh said they will stick with the present coaching set-up for the second leg of the Malaysia Hockey Legue, as he feels his team has achieved their target even though the results are not very encouraging.
The debutantes had secured six national players to strengthen their campaign, while the rest were mostly their Malaysia Games players.
“If you study at the standings, Terengganu look like a flop in their first Premier Division season. But in reality, the six national players which we hired, have been very instrumental in helping our Malaysia Games players improve their game.
“The management can see this change in the young boys, and so, we have no plans to hire a consultant or change the coaching set-up for the second round,” said Saberi.
Terengganu had paid big bucks to secure Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin, Fitri Saari, Azlan Misron, Shahrun Nabil, Ismail Abu and Ameerullah Aziz but have been a flop as they have only one win and a draw to show in mid-season.
“Every team has an objective, and ours was to help the youth in our team to became more confident, matured players by playing alongside established names.
“The state government has pledged to continue supporting our team to play in the MHL, so we are not in for a short term, but looking to nurture our state-born players into better players and I am sure the results will follow suit,” said Saberi.
Their only win was against Nur Insafi (5-1) while the draw was against Tenaga Nasional (4-4).
They will open their second round campaign against UniKL, who beat them on Sunday 3-1.
On the other end of the scale, defending champions Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) are clear by four points from the chasing pack of Sapura and Tenaga who have 12 points in mid-season.
KLHC play Sapura again on Friday, and a win would almost hand the League title to them early in the second round.
STANDINGS
PREMIER DIVISION
P W D L F A Pts
KLHC 6 5 1 0 27 8 16
TNB 6 3 3 0 23 12 12
Maybank 6 4 0 2 21 17 12
Sapura 6 2 2 2 15 14 8
UniKL 6 2 0 4 9 18 6
Tgganu 6 1 1 4 13 19 4
N Insafi 6 0 1 5 6 26 1
