National men’s hockey team head coach Sarjit Singh has called upon Malaysian fans to give the new-look Speedy Tigers room to ‘grow’ as they head into the 30th edition of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup with enthusiasm.
The stage is set for what promises to be a thrilling campaign with the presence of Paris Olympic-bound New Zealand (World No 10), South Korea (World No 11), Pakistan (No 15) and Canada (No 19). The Malaysians, ranked World No.13, will go into the tournament as defending champions after winning the SAS Cup for the first time in 2022 following a wait of 39 years since the first edition in 1983.
Sarjit’s Speedy Tigers will meet Pakistan in their first match on Saturday at 8.30pm.
“People should not judge Speedy Tigers. We are developing this team. Be patient. Let the team grow gradually,” said Sarjit as the team prepares for the second friendly match against South Korea later in the evening.
“The friendly match against New Zealand on Wednesday was of high quality. We are a new team. We have also not done our fitness training programme due to the short time. Just imagine if we had done that programme, the performance of the team would have been much better. But they will only get better and better in time. Give them that space to improve,” he said.
Sarjit also said he was impressed with the remarkable performance of the four senior players– Faizal, his brother Fitri Saari, midfielder Marhan Jalil and goalkeeper Muhammad Hafizuddin Othman, and newcomer goalkeeper Che Shahrul Azmi against the Kiwis.
“Their performance was ‘extra ordinary’. The goalkeepers saved a lot of shots. They performed well. The attitude of all five players was excellent. The only thing is we made a lot of errors in defence which New Zealand did not punish us and we will look into improving in this area,” added Sarjit.
“We trained for 12 days and selected 30 players. After that, we trained for another five days and gave the players a break of nine days in lieu of the Hari Raya festival. We regrouped again and trained for a few days before travelling to Ipoh for the SAS Cup on Sunday,” said Sarjit.
He said that the 18 players to be shortlisted for the SAS Cup are aware that the competition will only get tougher, but the message is clear – they must play their hearts out.
“We are looking for committed and hard-working set of players. There is no doubt we have a lot of them. Our target is 30 months from now – the 2026 Asian Games. Our long-term focus is preparing this team for the Asian Games.
“We are not only talking about the 18 players selected for the SAS Cup. They are just a fraction of the whole team which consist of 30 players. In every tournament we are going to change players and we will be giving opportunities to all players to play in as many matches to gain exposure and experience,” said Sarjit.
This is just the first phase of trying out the 18 players shortlisted. In the next two tournaments Sarjit said he will give another four or five players the opportunity.
Sarjit added that the journey for the Speedy Tigers does not stop with these 18 players for SAS. It involves everyone. The next stop will be the Six Nations in Poland (May 30-June 9), followed by the Asian Champions Trophy in Inner Mongolia (Sept 8-17).
“It is not easy to get quality matches and we got lucky as we played against a very strong opponent in New Zealand that gave us a quality match. When we get a lot of quality matches, only then can we get a better idea of the selection of the team,” said the former international.
He stressed that every day will be a learning process for the team and along the way, the players will bound to make mistakes.
“We will try to minimise our mistakes and give everybody the most opportunities for them to perform. Training and playing in international matches are different.”
Final squad of 18 named for SAS tonight after friendly match against Korea :
Goalkeepers : Muhammad Hafizuddin Othman, Che Sharul Azmi Che Saupi
Defenders : Muhammad Marhan Jalil (Captain), Syed Mohamad Syafiq Syed Cholan, Muhammad Amirul Hamizan Azhar, Muhamad Shafiq Hassan, Muhammad Najib Abu Hassan, Syarman Mat Tee
Midfielders : Mohd Fitri Saari, Nik Muhammad Aiman Nik Rozemi, Shello Silverius, Norsyafiq Sumantri, Alfarico Lance Liau Jr
Forwards : Faizal Saari, Muhammad Azrai Aizad Abu Kamal, Muhajir Abdu Rauf, Mohamad Akhimullah Anuar Esook, Azimuddin Syakir Kamaruddin
