Malaysian women hockey trainees perform well in the Development Programme: Hockey Update
Last week, a group of eleven women hockey players joined in the second phase of training that is being conducted under the Women’s Hockey 1MAS Development Programme at the Sarawak Hockey Stadium, Kuching. These players have shown quite an impressive performance
and fitness during the training.
The Chief Coach, C. Sivasubramaniam, pointed out that girls, especially those from SMK Tebakang, were highly dedicated and organised during the training sessions. Moreover, he said that out of these eleven, four have a capability to be a part of the state’s
and Sukma’s team in the next three to four years under practice and direction.
He added that these Under-16 female players have been specially picked up for the development programme.
“We are preparing them for the National U-16 tournament in Kuching in early December. This is the first time we are hosting the event. They will also form the batch of players we are grooming for future Sukma and national competitions,” said the coach.
He was amazed with the talent within these young players and commented, “They have only played for their schools and I’m now teaching them more advanced techniques like jinking and spin-off before going to off-ball skills (movements on the pitch to confuse
opponents).”
According to Siva, the programme should have been widespread to other towns nearby like Miri, Bintulu, Sibu, Kapit and Mukah so as to attract more potential players for the training, but the only drawback is the lack of artificial turf fields in the state.
Siva stated that Kuching is the only state with just one field for hockey and in order to make Sarawak a centre place for women hockey in Malaysia, there are facilities required to do so.
Every Saturdays and Sundays, two training sessions are being held with three-hour training sessions in morning and evening, each.
In the meantime, the Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) has selected 30 players for the programme, according to the programmes’ State Development Officer, Margaret Fong.
Five girls from SMK Late, who have been short-listed, have not yet showed up at the training and Fong said that they will be awaited until the next week’s end and if they do not make it, some other school will be invited in.
Out of the 30 listed, 24 attended the first phase of the training, however, in the second phase only 11 showed up, while the remaining were busy preparing for their term papers.
Fong expressed sadness that the players from other towns were not able to join in the development programme.
With regard to the programme, Fong believes it is a productive attempt, but one downside is that players attending it belong to suburban or rural schools, which takes time for them to be transported to and from the Sarawak Stadium. Moreover, food is another
issue.
Tags: