Winning SEA Games gold medal a priority — Hockey coach

SEPANG: After successfully qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Bhubaneswar, India, the national hockey squad will shift its focus on winning the gold medal at the 29th Kuala Lumpur SEA Games from Aug 19-30 and the Asia Cup in Dhaka, Bangladesh, scheduled from Oct 14-22.

The national hockey squad qualified for the World Cup after finishing among the top- four in the World Hockey League Semifinals in London.

“As we qualified automatically to the World Cup, the Asia Cup is not a must win tournament. We will look into all processes that we are ready for the SEA Games. Winning the SEA Games gold medal is the priority,” national coach Stephen van Huizen told reporters after arriving at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport ( KLIA) from London, here yesterday.

According to Van Huizen, he would conduct a postmortem in about two weeks time on the national squad’s performance at the World Hockey League adding that not all 18 players who played in London would be in the SEA Games squad.

“We have a pool of 40 players and we are not only relying on 18 players who represented Malaysia in London. We don’t want to put pressure on them. They worked very hard and sacrificed their Hari Raya celebrations. They were tired physically and mentally.

“Some of them have to skip their studies due to preparations for the World Hockey League. We will rotate them and prepare them for the three major tournaments next year,” he said.

For next year, the World Cup is not the only priority but also the Commonwealth Games in April and the Asian Games in August, which offers an automatic berth to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

After the World Hockey League, Van Huizen admitted that more hard work was needed to sustain the performance and become one of the most sought-after teams in the Asian region.

He said there was not much of a disparity in the strength of teams in the Asian region and the six leading hockey playing countries are capable of winning the Asia Cup, thus automatically qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

“There is not much of a difference in strength among hockey powers in Asia, we have managed to defeat India but they will definitely conduct a postmortem. Similarly, South Korea, China and Pakistan will do the same. So, it’s not just a team that can win the Asia Cup but six,” he said.

Obviously rivalry among Asian teams will be fierce and Malaysia must be prepared for the backlash, maintain confidence and always work together as a team. — Bernama