Rival teams ready to slug it out for men’s field hockey silver

INDONESIA andd Thailand have fol-lowed Singapore’s cue by setting up base in Malaysia in the hope of winning silver in the men’s field hockey.

The Singaporeans have been training in Malaysia for the past three weeks while Indonesia flew in a week early to set up base in Kuala Terengganu.

Thailand chose Ipoh as their base to get some quality practice matches.

With Malaysia clearly a class above, the three teams are in a fight of their own to get into the final and take the silver.

Singapore national coach K. Rajan said: “We have to face reality. Malaysia are way ahead of us. For us, the final is the target and we are preparing for that challenge. We have had some good practice matches.”

Although Malaysia know that there is a huge gulf in class, they are not taking anything for granted.

“We want to win the gold and there will be no let-up in our preparations. I want the players to be fully focused and take each match seriously,” said national coach Stephen van Huizen.

“We used to be casual and complacent when playing against low- er-ranked teams. That cannot happen here.”

Hockey starts tomorrow but Malaysia will not start their campaign until Wednesday against Indonesia.

This is followed by matches against Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar. The top two teams from the round-robin preliminary round will meet in the final.

Stephen said that it is good that “Malaysia will get to see all four teams in action before our opening match”.

“That will give us a chance to know what we are up against. Basically, if we play to our strength, then we should go through,” he said.

Hockey offers four golds – two in field hockey (men and women) and two in indoor hockey ( men and women).

We have to face reality. Malaysia are way ahead of us.

K. Rajan