Only being champions will do

THE Malaysian women’s hockey team will embark on another uphill task to qualify for the World Cup, but coach K. Dharmaraj and his charges are ready to break new barriers.

After failing at the World League Semi-finals in Belgium where they finished 10th, Malaysia must now become champions at the Asia Cup in Kakamigahara, Japan on Oct 28Nov 5.

And the tough teams to beat will be China (World No 8), South Korea (No 9), Japan (No 11) and India (No 12) while Malaysia (No 22) have beaten Kazakhstan (No 34), Thailand (No 31), and Singapore before.

The format will also make it difficult for Malaysia to qualify. At first the eight teams will be divided into two groups and the top two teams qualify to play in a round robin.

Each team will play three more matches, and the top two in the round robbin qualify for the final.

And even though China, South Korea and Japan have qualified for the London World Cup next year, Malaysia must still end the tournament with a gold medal to qualify.

And in case of a double qualification if either Japan, South Korea or China win gold — the slot will go to the highest ranked team in the World League Semifinals.

The other teams who have qualified for the World Cup are England, Argentina, Australia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain and the United States.

“It wil be really tough to play in such a format as four other teams are higher ranked than us.

“But we are up to the challenge. We need to break free from the fifth position we always end up in the Asia Cup and play in the round robin.

“That’s the only way to improve our ranking,” said Dharmaraj.

For the record, the Malaysian women have never played in the World Cup as their highest achievement in the Asia Cup was a bronze medal in Seoul, 1985.

However, they broke new ground by qualifying for the World League Semi-finals under Dharmaraj. Jugjet Singh