Malaysian Tigresses’ ferocity just don’t last

AS the matches progressed, the national women’s hockey team fell behind.

That was national women’s coach K. Dharmaraj’s reason for Malaysia’s 2-0 defeat to Japan in the Asia Cup quarter-finals in Japan, on Thursday.

He said fatigue was the main factor behind his players conceding goals especially towards the end of the game.

It led to the Malaysian team losing focus, and tiredness was also the case in the losses to China (5-4) and India (2-0).

The Malaysian team would just lose their shape in the fourth quarter after a stellar 45 minutes of play.

“The match against Japan (Thursday) was pretty balanced before we conceded two goals in the fourth quarter and I felt it was due to fatigue,” said Dharmaraj.

“This is because there are players who had to be utilised for the full 60 minutes due to a huge gap between the reserves and the key players.”

Nonetheless, Dharmaraj believes his squad’s performance this time around was better than their outing in the World Hockey League last July.

“Now we are able to gain more penalty corners compared to before but whatever it is, they need quality match exposure “

The team’s defeat to Japan has ended the Malaysian Tigresses’ hopes of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup via the Asian group. Naqib Nor Said