Sunday, March 31, 2013

KLHC whip Warriors, Maybank close in..

KUALA Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) consolidated their position at the top of the Premier Division when they beat Nur Insafi 7-0 at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil yesterday.
  The win took their tally to 10 points in the Malaysia Hockey League, while Maybank closed the gap with nine points after they beat UniKL 4-1 yesterday.
  KLHC opened scoring with an opportunist goal from Australian Timothy James in the 22nd minute, and increased the lead in the 29th minute through the effort of Harvinder Singh.
  After the breather, Pakistani Umar Bhutta increased the lead in the 40th minute, while nine minutes later Nabil Fiqri made it 4-0 with a field attempt.
  Muhammad Imran then completed the route by scoring KLHC's fifth goal off penalty corner attempt.
  Imran scored his second and KLHC's sixth in th 58th while Najib Abu Hassan (61st) nailed the last goal.
  "It looks like Maybank have some good Pakistan buys and even though we beat them 4-3 in the first round, we can't take them lightly in the second round as they are improving after every match," said KLHC coach K. Dharmaraj.
  At the adjacent pitch, UniKL took an early lead off Noor Faeez Ibrahim in the sixth minute, but Maybank hit back with three goals before the break.
  Pakistan import Muhammad Imran started the fightback with a penalty corner goal in the 23rd minute, before Shafqat Rasool gave them the lead in the 33rd minute, while Muhammad Waqas made it 3-1 in the 35th minute.
  And Maybank's Dick Cheny, from Sabah, then scored the fourth in the 66th minute to complete UniKL's misery.
  "We have to cut down on the costly mistakes in the remaining matches for UniKL to salvage their season. It was the same script against Tenaga (lost 4-2) and we can't afford to drop more points," said UniKL coach Arul Selvaraj.
  RESULTS: Premier Division -- KLHC 7 Nur Insafi 0, Maybank 4 UniKL 1, Terengganu v Sapura x.