COACH DEFENDS HIS DECISION

Saizul says he wanted to give the KL2017 squad a rest

NATIONAL rugby sevens coach Saizul Hafifi Md Noor has defended his selection of players after Malaysia suffered an abysmal outing at the Asian Series season opener in Hong Kong over the weekend.

Hafifi, who included only one player from the side that created history by winning gold at the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games (KL2017) last month, said he fielded an experimental team as he is looking to build a larger pool of players in preparation for the Indonesia Asian Games next year.

“We decided to give the KL2017 squad a rest as they had been training hard for months prior to the competition,” said Hafifi yesterday.

“We were also testing our second-tier players as we need a bigger pool of players for the Asian Games next year.

“Unfortunately, many of these players had been competing for their states in the Agong’s Cup recently and were not well prepared for sevens competition.

“We have identified three players who have good potential and could be absorbed into our main team.”

The three players are Hashraffuddin Basir, Mohd Zaiheri Zumardi and Nazreen Fitri Nasrudin.

Hafifi added that the Sevens Series cannot be compared to the Sea Games as it allows teams to use foreign players. Malaysia fielded a fully local team.

After the highs of KL2017, it was an anti-climatic performance from the national team as they suffered massive losses to Hong Kong (38-0), China (54-14) and the Philippines (33-0) in the group stage of the tournament.

They then lost to Japan (44-0) in the cup quarterfinals and Sri Lanka (45-0) in the plate semifinals. They, however, managed to beat Taiwan 33-8 in the 7th place playoff.

The next leg of the Sevens Series will be held in South Korea on Sept 23-24.