KUALA LUMPUR - Men’s national hockey team head coach, A. Arul Selvaraj, has had his work cut out after watching below par performances from some of his charges during the 2021 Malaysian Hockey League (MHL) which concluded on Saturday.
Arul was only happy with some of the players who displayed good leadership qualities and worked hard throughout the campaign after almost three months of not training due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) 2.0.
But the fundamentals - passing and receiving - as well as penalty corner conversion are worrying the former international, ahead of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup scheduled from June 18-27 in Ipoh, his first assignment since taking charge of the Speedy Tigers last August.
Over the three weeks of the MHL from March 11, excluding the final, the teams only managed to convert 12.8 per cent of penalty corners, this translates to only 11 successful conversions from 86 attempts.
Arul said around 30 percent conversion rate is considered good for international matches and that league champions and TNB Cup runners-up University Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) powered by national flicker Muhammad Razie Abdul Rahim had the highest percentage of 26 percent conversion rate.
TNB Cup winners Terengganu Hockey Team (THT) had around 15 percent, followed by Maybank (5.5 percent) and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), who had about four percent.
“But I believe if we polish the penalty corner attacks once the players report to the national team after the short break, we should be fine because Malaysia has one of the best penalty corner experts. We also need to make sure our push-out speed is good, we will get our biomechanics team to measure the speed.
“I have to agree that not being able to hold hockey sticks for three months could have played a role. However, the shortcomings in the basic fundamentals - passing and receiving under pressure, and passing and receiving on the run - were the weakest elements,” Arul told Bernama.
Apart from that Arul, who has coaching experience in South Africa and Ireland, praised players like Muhammad Marhan Mohd Jalil (UniKL), Faiz Helmi Jali (TNB), Muhammad Najmi Farizal Jazlan and Meor Muhammad Azuan Hasan (both Maybank) for displaying good leadership to navigate their teams.
“In the goalkeeping (department), I am delighted to see Muhamad Hafizuddin Othman (THT) and Adrian Andy Albert (UniKL) perform well. However in the final, I think Adrian just lost it,” he added.
2020 treble winners, UniKL only managed to defend their Charity Shield and league titles, as THT wrested the TNB Cup after edging the former champions 2-0 in the penalty shootout after both teams were tied 4-4 in the final. - Bernama, April 5, 2021.
