Radha slams the pathetic display of the Malaysian hockey team in India
Thursday, 13 Dec 2018
by aftar singh
image: https://www.thestar.com.my/~/media/online/2018/12/12/19/31/aftar_1312_azmah_1.ashx/?w=620&h=413&crop=1&hash=B8CFADEFD492900DD14A8F267DAE9BEA55E5A080
Rare one: Malaysian goalkeeper S. Kumar is the only player who played up to expectations at the hockey World Cup.
BHUBANESWAR (India): The Malaysian hockey team’s poor showing at the World Cup in India did not go down well with Malaysia Hockey Confederation (MHC) vice-president Datuk V. Radha Krishnan.
Radha is annoyed with the players’ performances and attitude and wants tough decisions taken.
World No. 12 Malaysia boast 11 experienced players, who featured for the second time in the World Cup but the team eventually finished 15th out of 16 teams in Bhubaneswar, thus failing to meet national coach Roelant Oltmans’ top-10 target.
“Malaysia created a mockery in the World Cup,” said Radha.
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“It was really disheartening to see the team losing badly to Holland (7-0). We managed just one attempt at Holland’s goal. This is really poor for our standards,” he said.
Malaysia drew 1-1 with Pakistan and lost 3-5 to Germany.
In total, Malaysia scored four goals from penalty corners and conceded 13 goals in three matches.
Radha said a post-mortem should be conducted to find out what went wrong.
“I’m not afraid to voice out my views as the truth must be told,” said Radha.
“Action must be taken to drop “prima donna players”. We must show that we can make some tough decision to drop players who do not fit in the team.”
When asked about the players who did not perform in the World Cup, Radha pointed out Muhd Firhan Ashari, Meor Muhd Azuan Hasan, Joel van Huizen, Muhd Ramadan Rosli, Nabil Fiqri Mohd Noor and Faiz Helmi Jali.
Only goalkeeper Mohd Hairi Abdul Rahman did not play in any of the three matches while 39-year-old S. Kumar was the best performer although he was the oldest in the World Cup squad.
Radha added that Malaysia’s world ranking would plunge and it was not a good indication ahead of the team’s bid to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“We’ve a good set-up of foreign coaches such as Terry Walsh who has been the MHC technical director for the last three years,” he said.
“It is important for the MHC executive board to relook into Terry’s contribution as a whole to our team.
“As for coach Oltmans, he only joined as the national coach on Oct 1. As such we cannot expect too much from him in such a short time.
“Malaysia must wake up from the slumber and must change their attitude fast as we’ve an important tournament next year to qualify for the Olympics,” he added.
Related story:
Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/sport/hockey/2018/12/13/world-cup-mockery-radha-slams-the-pathetic-display-of-the-malaysian-hockey-team-in-india/#63J9Jt0J5akxp2M9.99
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