KUALA LUMPUR: Three of the men’s national hockey squad players, who were not selected into the 21-member team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics qualifiers next month, might be absorbed into the Sea Games’ indoor hockey team. National men’s indoor hockey head coach, Muhamad Amin Rahim said the selection was based on an initial plan with Roelant Oltmans, to have players who had played at the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games two years ago. “We have two play ers who played in the last Sea Games and the other player has trained with the squad before
. As for now, we have three players from the field hockey squad that will be brought into the indoor hockey team,” he told reporters during a training session at the Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz Stadium, here yesterday. Muhamad Amin, who is also the national hockey team assistant head coach, has named Najmi Farizal Jazlan, Muhammad Amirol Aideed Mohd Arshad and Luqman Nur Hakim Ahmad Shukran for the indoor squad.
He said the players would be called immediately after the official programme change announcement (removal of players) was made, to enable them to adjust to the indoor hockey atmosphere before the Sea Games starts in a few months. On the preparations for this year’s Sea Games, Muhamad Amin said the national indoor hockey squad competed in the 2019 Men’s Indoor Hockey Asia Cup in Chonburi, Thailand on July 15-21 and have shown positive development compared to the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games two years ago. However, there is still room for improvement especially when it faces Indonesia and Thailand at the biennial Games in the Philippines scheduled from Nov 30 to Dec 11.
“I really believe in the team because we have the strengths in terms of game play knowledge and speed,” he said. For the record, the men’s indoor hockey team won the gold medal while the women’s team won bronze at the 2017 Kuala Lumpur Sea Games. Earlier, the national indoor hockey squad was paid a visit by 2019 Philippines Sea Games deputy Chef-de-Mission Nurul Huda Abdullah.
The former national swimming queen said she was confident that the national team were capable of contributing two gold medals as targetted. “The team managers are very positive about the performance of the indoor hockey team. Unfortunately, for this Sea Games, we don’t have a field hockey event so we are depending on the indoor hockey team to bring victory for Malaysia,” she said. – Bernama
