AS Expected, the Malaysian women's hockey team beat Singapore 5-0 to finish tops in Group B of the World League Round Two in New Delhi yesterday.
After beating Kazakhstan 8-0, the Malaysian women went on to beat Russia 3-0 and then Singapore to enter the quarter-finals stage on a high.
Malaysian will play winless Ghana in the last eight, and are expected to breeze into the semis where they are expected to face their toughest hurdle in Poland to lay their hands on one of the two tickets to the World League Semi-finals.
For the record, the women have never qualified for the World League Semi-finals before.
Yesterday, Fazilla Sylvester Silin started the Singapore rout with a field goal in the 24th minute, and she went on to notch a hat-trick with goals in the 32nd and 45th minutes. The other goals were scored by Rabiatul Mohamed (26th) and Nurul Mansur (41st).
Malaysia had whacked Singapore 10-0 in WL Round One, so naturally coach Nasihin Nubli was a little worried: "We missed many scoring chances in the first quarter and our penalty corneers were also not very sharp today (yesterday). We can't afford this in the knock-out stages, so I will use the rest day before the quarters to re-drill these areas."
The stakes are very high in New Delhi as only the finalists get another shot at qualifying for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro, while one more spot will be made available to the highest ranked team which finishes third in the World League Round Two tournaments around the world.
"We should beat Ghana, and our likely semi-finals opponents are Poland going by the form of teams in Group A. We did play a friendly against Poland before the tournament and won 1-0, so nothing is impossible for my charges if they put their hear in the game," said Nasihin.
