Poland Seniors side win experience battle..

THE national juniors hockey team lost 3-0 to the Poland senior side in their second match in Warsaw yesterday.
  The juniors are on a Tour of Europe for nine matches, and they whipped the Polish juniors 7-0, but found the senior side difficult to crack.
  They next play Poland juniors again today before heading for Belgium for three matches, and complete their tour in England with another three matches.
  The Poland senior side are in their final phase of training for the European Championships in three weeks time, which also serves as a World Cup Qualifier for Europe.
  "They scored the first goal when a penalty corner was turned into a penalty stroke after the ball hit Kavin Kartik's body, and it remained until the half-time breather.
  "In the second half, we paid the price for missing sitters and also penalty corner attempts which hit the bar, and also were well saved by their goalkeeper. The Polish scored two more late counter attack goals when the players pushed forward in numbers," said team manager Mirnawan Nawawi.
  Overall, said Mirnawan, his charges managed to compete with the Polish senior side on skills and tactics, but lost out to a more experienced set of players.
  The Malaysian juniors, an under-21 side, are preparing for the New Delhi Junior World Cup in December.

Malaysian juniors whip Poland 7-0..

THE Malaysian Junior World Cup trainees whipped Poland Under-23 7-0 a day after landing on Warsaw on their Tour of Europe.
  Coach K. Dharmaraj's boys will next play the Polish senior squad today.
  Next on their iteanary, in preparation for the Junior World Cup in New Delhi in December, is another match against he Polish under-23, and then travel to Belgium for three more matches against their under-21 side.
  After that, it is three more matches against England's under-21 side.
  In the first match, Zulhairi Hashim top-scored with four penalty corner goals in the 12th, 23rd, 32nd and 43rd minutes.
  The other goals were scored by Rashid Baharom (17th), Dangerous Lee (25th) and Nor Aqmal Ghaffar (30th).
   Malaysia had a total of 10 penalty corners, while Poland three.
  Team manager Mirnawan Nawawi said: "We tested two different strategies in both halves, and the 50 per cent penalty corner rate made all the difference.
 "Overall, it was a satisfying match, as barely 24 hours after arriving, we took to the pitch for the match."
  The early casualty was Redzhwan Jaafar who twisted his ankle and will be out for the next two matches in Poland.

Europe warm-up for World Cup

THE National juniors are in Europe today to play nine Test matches in preparation for the Junior World Cup in New Delhi on Dec 6-15.

Team manager Mirnawan Nawawi said: "Two matches will be against Poland Under-23, and one against the Polish senior side.
"Then we will move to Belgium for another three matches with their Under-21 side.
"After that, we travel to England to play another three matches with their Under-21 side."
Belgium are the emerging power in Europe, as their senior side beat Australia in the final of the World League Semi-finals to secure their World Cup berth.
The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has yet to release the groupings for the Junior World Cup, but the 16 who will feature are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Egypt, France, Germany, India, South Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, Spain and Malaysia.
For the tour, coach K. Dharmaraj will not have the services of five national players - Faiz Helmi, Izad Hakimi, Fitri Saari, Firhan Ashaari and Meor Azuan -- as they are preparing for the Asia Cup in Ipoh.
SQUAD: Hazrul Faiz, Hafizzuddin Othman, Kavin Kartik, Zulhairi Hashim, Nor Aqmal Gaffar, Aminuddin Zain, Azri Hassan, Haziq Samsul, Shazril Irwan, Joel Samuel van Huizen, Syamim Yusof, Rashid Baharom, Shahril Saabah, Azwar Rahman, Dangerous Lee, Faridzul Afiq, Redzhwan Jaafar, Azrul Hasbullah.
Manager: Mirnawan Nawawi; Coach: K. Dharmaraj; Assistant coaches: K. Gobinathan, Nor Azlan Bakar.

1Mas moving to eite level

LAUNCHED and initiated by Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) president Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad  Shah in December 2010, the 1Mas Hockey Programme is now  moving from grassroots into an elite phase.
    As the end target is to produce players who will win the first  Asian Games gold medal for their country.
    Currently, there are about 1,500 under-16 boys and girls  who are training at 14 centres nationwide and, it will soon  move from its big base to identifying the best and taking them  to a higher level.
   1Mas Hockey Programme steering committee deputy  chairman Datuk R. Yogeswaran said yesterday, even though  some of the centres are not as active as they would like them  to be, and the participation of other than Malays are lacking,  work is being done to remedy this areas.
    “After almost three years some of the centres have become  less active as the number of players dwindled and we are also  having some problems attracting the Chinese, Indians, Punjabis and other races to our programme.
    “What we have done is to hit these centres where it hurt  most by cutting their allocation until their report card shows  better marks.
    “The name of the programme itself suggests that we  welcome all races, but to date the participation of the Malays  has been great, but the other races shy away,” said Yo geswaran.
    And the programme coordinators in some states like  Penang have taken their own initiative to move into Tamil  schools to get a bigger pool.
    “Some of the states like Malacca, Johor and Penang have  started their own initiatives to attract other races and we  welcome this initiative as we want the participation of all  races.
    “And now, from a wide base, we have started programmes  like goalkeepers centralised training with professional  coaches as well as other camps to bring the best players from  around the country to play and train under coaches who can  take them to a higher level,” said Yogeswaran.
    Funded by the government money is not a problem for this  unique programme, which aims to have a standard national  training curriculum so that when players are ready to knock  on the various national age-group teams, they will have the  same style of play.
      The 1Mas under-16 team tasted their first success when  they won the FHE Cup held in Perth, Australia in 2011, and  then silver this year.
     And now, they have even been entrusted to train and field  a team in the Four-Nation in Mannheim, Germany.  Malaysia’s under-16 side won silver medal in 2010 when they  lost to Germany but they did beat Holland and Belgium  then.
   But over the last two editions, haphazard selection saw  them getting whipped by the European sides.
    “We have been entrusted to train the next side to  Mannheim, and after 50 years on the job, I can safely say that  I have spotted many interesting talent in this 1Mas elite side  and we will have a strong side for the Germany Four-Nation  next year,” said Yogeswaran.

The ‘Malaysian way’ syndrome

by Tony Mariadass
 
WHAT is it with foreign coaches and Malaysian sports associations?
The latest to experience Malaysian “in-hospitality” is national hockey coach Paul Revington, who, after having resigned before the World League semi-final in Johor Baru, has agreed to stay for the championship.
And on Tuesday, Revington was persuaded to fulfi l his contract which ends in August next year.
Revington is not the fi rst foreign coach to face problems working in Malaysia, as many others in various sports had had similar encounters and either left in a huff , terminated their contracts or were amicably dismissed by the sports associations.
I can remember as far back as 1986 when national soccer coach from England, Frank Lord, left with a game in hand in the pre-World Cup tournament in Seoul after the FA of Malaysia management decided not to entertain his request to extend his contract before the match.
Malaysia had defeated Korea 1-0 at home and needed only a draw in the away match to qualify for the next round, but FAM decided that they could do it without Lord. They named Mohamad Bakar as the coach and recalled the late Datuk Mokhtar Dahari from retirement for the match.
Malaysia lost 2-0 to Korea. To this day, I believe Malaysia would have got a draw in Seoul and qualified for the next round with Lord at the helm.
Lord had this to say about working in Malaysia before he left: “Malaysia is a beautiful country, warm and friendly people, great food and places to visit, but defi nitely not a place to work in sport.”
The list of foreign coaches who exited the Malaysian coaching scene, frustrated at not being given a free hand or forced out by the associations, is indeed long.
Among the notable ones are badminton’s Morten Frost (Denmark), Park Joo Bong and Yoo Yong Sung (Korea), Li Mao (China) and Rexy Mainakay (Indonesia), soccer’s Trevor Hartley (England) and George Knoble (Holland), Claude Le Roy (France) and the late Bertalan Bisskek (Hungary), and athletics’ Daniel St Hilaire (Canada).
Revington was quoted as saying: “I never experienced such situations when coaching in South Africa and Ireland. So it came as a culture shock and the fact that something that should have been resolved in about three weeks took five months was also a bane for me.”
Granted, foreign coaches have to understand the local culture and make adjustments, but when this means compromising on work ethic, it is indeed baffling.
Why must Malaysian sports associations or the National Sports Council hire foreign coaches, pay them well, with perks thrown in, only to tell them to do things the Malaysian way? How then will they be able to impart their expertise to the players and local coaches?
The associations should just hire local coaches, who come much cheaper, and get them to work the way the administrators want them to.
If Revington or other foreign coaches had problems working in Malaysia, it probably had to do with their personality, but when we have a string of them crying foul for the same reasons — interference from the administrators, lack of support from the local coaches, revolting players, the unfulfilment of the terms of contract, among others — we have to take a hard look at ourselves.
Is there something wrong with our sports officials? Are local coaches intimidated by foreign coaches? Are players shying away from regimented training and playing politics?
Foreign coaches are not here to stay. They will leave when their contracts end. So shouldn’t we tap their experience and knowledge so that local coaches can become better?
It is time the authorities who hire these foreigners acted more professionally.
More often than not, they do not take the trouble to understand what makes these coaches tick and how they work.
By the same token, the foreign coaches have to respect our culture. There have been cases where they were problematic, but we have to follow procedures when dismissing them. If local sports officials had dealt with matters, however trivial, properly, they would not have run into problems.
Why ruin it when we have a good thing going for Malaysian sport?
Local sports offi cials should stop playing politics, taking the side of players or officials and promoting their own agenda.

REVINGTON: Not the first foreign coach to be facing problems working in Malaysia

At the end of the day, sport is bigger than any individual.
With mutual respect, working towards a common goal and leaving politics and bickering out of the equation, Malaysian sport will surely see better times.
Let us not tarnish our image in the eyes of foreign coaches.