Hoping for smiles not tears

CAPTAIN Nur Syafazliyana Mohd Ali doesn’t want to see tears from the national women’s netball team this time at the Sea Games.

They plan to snatch the Sea Games gold medal from Singapore.

“We can’t wait for the Sea Games to start because we really want to take back the gold medal,” she said.

“We don’t want to feel the way we felt in 2015.”

Two years ago, Malaysia lost by a mere three points to Singapore, who were then the host nation.

The 24-year-old stressed that despite Singapore’s vast exposure to intensive training abroad and competitions against big teams, Malaysia are prepared to take them on as they are fully ready after coming back from two tours in Australia.

“The Australian experience helped us a lot as they are the world number one and we have seen tremendous improvements in our sides.

“Their playing style is different compared to Asian players because they are faster, tactical different and their size is different.”

Malaysia’s tour to Melbourne showed positive results with four wins out of five, with the sole defeat to the Australian men’s netball team.

Last year, the team won the Asian Championships in Bangkok, a feat Malaysia achieved for the first time 32 years ago when they defeated Sri Lanka.

The difference to the team this year will see the absence of former captain, Nurul Adha Abu Bakar and debuts by Puah Pei San, Shandralelka Shanmugam and Karishma Loganathan. Farah Azharie