KUALA LUMPUR − The national men's hockey squad avenged their defeat to Ireland on Tuesday when they recorded a 4-2 victory in their second Test match against the team held at Lisnagarvey Hockey Club, Hillsborough, Northern Ireland yesterday.
The Speedy Tigers narrowly lost 2-3 in the first Test match against Ireland. The Test matches were part of their 2021 United Kingdom Tour Series that started on September 26.
In yesterday’s match, Muhammad Razie Abd Rahim emerged as Malaysia’s hero when he scored two goals through penalty corners in the 11th and 12th minute.
Muhammad Azrai Aizad Abu Kamal netted the third goal through a field movement in the 15th minute before Muhammad Najib Abu Hassan completed Malaysia’s winning goal in the 22nd minute, also through a field goal.
However, the squad − coached by Arul Selvaraj − were initially stunned when Jeremy Duncan scored a field goal for Ireland as early as the third minute, but the boys set that aside and bounced back to up the ante.
Two minutes before the end of the match, Luke Madeley netted Ireland’s second goal via a penalty corner.
Meanwhile, Arul was proud of his protégés, who took heed of their defeat in the first leg to be better prepared to seek victory against Ireland in the second leg.
“A really encouraging and positive performance for them to bounce back from yesterday’s defeat. We got three penalty corners and Razie Rahim converted two of them while Ireland was rewarded with more penalty corners than us.
“Field goals scored by Azrai Aizad and Najib Hassan also show that in our team there are many players who can score field goals,” he said in a statement issued by the Malaysian Hockey Confederation today.
Team captain, Muhammad Marhan Mohd Jalil, said they went down with high confidence and did their best to ensure victory, and hoped that his teammates would maintain the winning momentum to face their next match against Wales, which is their third Test match as well as seventh overall in the United Kingdom.
The match against Wales will take place this Saturday at 11.30pm Malaysian time at the Wales Hockey Centre, Cardiff.
In another development, the national men’s junior squad, who are also in the United Kingdom, lost 0-2 to the England Under-21 team at Bisham Abbey yesterday. – Bernama, October 7, 2021
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