Defending champions Malaysia and three-time winners, New Zealand, go head-to-head in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tie with every reason for hockey fans to be optimistic about an exciting encounter in Ipoh tomorrow night.
The Kiwis, ranked World No. 10 and bound for the Paris Olympics in July, will no doubt pose a threat to the Malaysians, who are No.14 in the recently released FIH World Rankings.
But national team head coach Sarjit Singh and the Speedy Tigers are acquainted with the Black Sticks’ style of play and commitment. In the recent friendly match between the two teams, the Malaysians posted a 3-2 victory at the SAS stadium.
“We need to strengthen our defence against New Zealand because when there is a little pressure, we tend to crack up at times. As I said earlier this is a young team and we are in the learning process stage,” said Sarjit, adding that he is not satisfied with the performance of the team against Canada as they gave away two simple goals.
“New Zealand is a very good side. In fact, they are a complete side. And when they put pressure on you, it is going to be a very difficult match for us. It is not going to be easy and we have to avoid that kind of pressure. The team must learn to control the game unlike against Pakistan,” said Sarjit.
“But it is a good opportunity for our players to be involved in these kinds of matches against teams such as New Zealand, Pakistan, Japan, Canada and Korea. As it is a learning process, we get should better and better with every game,” he added.
He emphasised that the team was assembled recently and there was insufficient time to focus on the physical training programme.
On the progress accomplished by Speedy Tigers thus far, Sarjit said that as long as the team continues to show improvement it is a good sign.
“Every team will have its bad day and hopefully last Saturday (against Pakistan) was our last bad day. And things should get better for us against New Zealand, and in the remaining pool matches,” said Sarjit.
“I am very happy for Azimuddin as he scored his first international goal. It is good for him and serves as a morale booster for him to score more goals.”
“Look at Faizal (Saari), what a goal he scored. He is different and a very outstanding player. And I am very happy that he is playing well and also supporting the team together with Marhan (Jalil) and Fitri (Saari),” added Sarjit.
“These are the players we are trying to build the team around them. Don’t forget we will also be playing against Pakistan and Canada in the Nations Cup in less than one month’s time and we should use the experience gained here in this tournament to play better next.”
Meanwhile, New Zealand head coach Greg Nicol, acknowledged that the Malaysians were playing good hockey. And with the home crowd, it is certainly going to be an entertaining match.
“The crowd is always big here. And if the crowd is quiet, we probably know that we are playing well. Trying to keep the crowd quiet will be our objective,” said Nicol.
“We are getting better although we know we are not at the level that we needed to be yesterday against Japan, so we have to keep working on the things that we are already working on and hopefully we can have a good start and keep putting Malaysia on a bit of pressure.”
“Against Japan we were down on the scoreboard but the way we played and created a lot of chances was encouraging, but we just were not clinical in the areas that mattered” said Nicol.
“We know that Malaysia can get very clinical when they get chances and we have to be very wary of that and it important for us make sure that when we have our chances, we take make use of them to nuetralise the situation.
“I am looking forward to playing Malaysia in Malaysia. It is a perfect set-up for us and we know if you win this game, you will put yourself in a strong position for the final.”
Pakistan and Japan play each other tomorrow so someone will be losing points. Whoever wins the Malaysia-New Zealand match puts in a good spot to fight for a berth in the final from their last two fixtures of the tournament.
Malaysia after the New Zealand will play Japan on Wednesday and Korea in their final pool matchon Friday.
New Zealand on their hand will take on Korea on Wednesday and Pakistan in their final pool match on Friday.