KUCHING: A total 40 players from six selected schools in the State are taking part in the hockey talent camp Series One 2018 from June 23-28 where the students received training plus fitness training which was conducted by strength and conditioning coach, Andre Richards.
Organised by the Sarawak Sports Corpooration (SSC)with the help from Sarawak Hockey Federation, the camp which consist of fitness training and coaching with schools from Serian, Sibu, Sarikei were brought in to get used to the Astroturf stadium facilities and modern training.
Among the coaches that from the hockey association were chief coach C.Sivasubramaniam, state women coach Sri Sakrunathan @ Murthi, Sunil Roy and Dangerous Lee Matthew.
According to Sivasubramaniam, the students who are mostly under 15 with one as young as 11 are brought in after watching them training in Sarikei where they have some qualities like physical strength and skills.
“They are not in the state development squads or in the inter-division competitions but I saw there new players with some attributes as they are strong with good physique so I brought them to Kuching with the co-operation of their schools and teachers.
“I want to build a bigger base to add to our future Sukma teams which I believe some of these group of players are capable of graduating to as I’m now concentrating on development and I want to introduce these players to get used to artificial hockey turf.
“I went to Sarikei to do coaching clinics and saw these players playing and are very active in schools like SMK Meradong, Sungai Paoh, Sibujaya as well as SK St. Jude, SMk Mapuh and SK Abang Kadir Gedong and these players had been playing in cement courts and play in very small areas and not used to playing in wide area like a propper pitch.
“I really thank SSC and SSC CEO Dr Ong Kong Swee who really encourages development and our coaches from the association.
“It is a very encouraging sign for me as I’m more involved with development and their introduction to better facilities and better coaching will help them reach to a higher level,” said Sivasubramaniam.
Sivasubramaniam said the strength and conditioning coach had added a new dimension to development of the young players as it helped the players how to do warm-up while training their agility with aerobic and anaerobic exercises.
He said gone are the days where they do static trainings as the new plyometris which is part of sports science are dynamic which gives muscles coordination, muscles to brain which fine-tune the players to perform at a higher level.
After this first phase of training, some of the players will be earmarked for the Sukma squad and will be called up for further training.
