Tengku Ahmad hopes to take Tenaga past former team Terengganu in Cup final

KUALA LUMPUR: Birthday boy Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin Tengku Abdul Jalil (pic) aims to draw on his experience to help Tenaga Nasional nail their first Tan Sri P. Alagendra Cup.

The national hockey striker, who celebrated his 33rd birthday yesterday, will lead his team against Terengganu in today’s mouth-watering final at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

Tengku Ahmad has an advantage of knowing Terengganu’s strength after playing for them for four years from 2013 before he joined Tenaga in 2017.

“I have in-depth knowledge of the East Coast team. They always deliv- er in the final. It will be no different this time,” said the Kangar-born Tengku Ahmad .

Terengganu will be led by South Korean penalty corner specialist Jang Jong-hyun, who netted a whop- ping 28 goals to help Terengganu win the Cup in 2017.

Then, they edged Maybank 5-3 in the final.

“They have a solid team of six foreign and local players. We have to watch out for Jong-hyun and national forward Faizal Saari, who are exceptional in their penalty corner drag flicks,” he said.

Jong-hyun has been in top form so far as he has scored a penalty corner each in the first two matches against Nur Insafi (3-1) in the quarter-finals and against Maybank (4-1) in the semi-finals.

“We cannot afford to give away penalty corners. We also need to keep an eye on Faizal, who has good dribbling skills and he is deadly in the semi-circle,” said Tengku Ahmad.

Tengku Ahmad, who made his debut in the MHL in 2005, has helped teams like KL Hockey Club (KLHC) and Terengganu win both the league and overall titles.

And now he wants to achieve the same with Tenaga, who has never won the Tan Sri P. Alagendra Cup since its inception in 2016.

Tenaga qualified for the final in 2016 but lost 2-1 to Sapura.

“I’m confident my teammates will rise to the occasion, and it’ll be a perfect birthday present for me,” added Tengku Ahmad.

I. Vickneswaran, who was hired as Terengganu coach this season, said Tenaga were capable of winning.

“They proved this by defeating last year’s overall champions Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) in the semi-finals (3-0) on Friday,” said the former international.

“Tenaga are good in every department. They have 10 national players and also the best goalkeeper – S. Kumar, who is in superb form.

“They’ve been playing together for years while we only had two weeks of training prior to the league,” said Vickneswaran.