THE Malaysian Tigress concluded their Tour of New Zealand yesterdaywith a 2-1 defeat against New Zealand's Black Sticks in the fifth and final game at the TET MultiSports Centre in Stratford.
Malaysia won one, 1-0, and lost four with the other three matches ending 2-5, 0-2 and 0-3.
New Zealand dominated the first half with Samantha Harrison scoring a double in her 100th international.
Malaysia lit up the board 10 minutes from full time through Nuraini Rashid’s penalty corner strike.
Fatin Shafika scored in the 1-0 famous win over the world No 5.
Black Sticks assistant coachSean Dancer said he was pleased by the performance of his side, ranked World No 5, against the World No 21 Malaysians as they closed the series positively.
“We are happy to finish with a win, but needed to score a few more goals from the amount of opportunities we created. Malaysia defended well in the second half and we needed to execute better in a congested attacking third,” said Dancer.
The New Zealand Tour has been an important aspect in the Tigress preparation for the Women’s World League Round Two in Kuala Lumpur on Jan 14-22 at the Tun Razak Hockey Stadium.
Malaysian will battle for a slot in the World League Semi-finals and a shot at the World Cup in the World League Round Two involving Ireland, Italy, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Wales.
World No 15 Italy are drawn in Group A with Thailand, Singapore and Wales whilst Malaysia are in Group B with Ireland (world No 16), Hong Kong and Kazakhstan.
The top two teams in Kuala Lumpur qualify for the Semi-finals of the World League.
