Malaysia

THE year 2004 was a mediocre year for women’s hockey, albeit with some improved performance on the pitch.
Off the pitch, the Malaysian Women's Hockey Association (MWHA) have finally come up with a stringent selection process for their long vacant team manager's post, after Timesport's call to have the position filled. The MWHA organised their first-ever team management course for the appointment of the manager and this will become a regular feature in the MWHA calendar for grooming a repertoire of managers. Malaysian women's hockey had become somewhat of a footnote in Malaysian sport and the association have identified the main reason for the decline as being the lack of support from the media. However, MWHA agreed that the watchful and critical eye of the media had somewhat contributed to their "slow but sure" climb on and off the pitch, by acting as a motivation for them. The present national team have a strong history, but were the punching bag of critics after their shocking performance at the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games. Many of the players in the team had donned national colours at the relatively young age of 17. In the 2002 Games, 17 caps were the most among the Malaysian players, compared to the Canadians which had some players who were touching 100 caps. This was a clear indication that before the Malaysian girls can match or compete on an equal terms, they need to increase their exposure at the international level. A pro-active approach was taken by the MWHA to establish a sound coaching platform, which led to the employment of a foreign coach from India C.R. Kumar. That helped the Malaysian team to put up a respectable and promising performance at the senior Asia Cup in New Delhi from Feb 1 to 8. The players had improved and, naturally, the experience of playing against top teams at a young age would be beneficial in the long run. The Asia Cup was set as a benchmark for the national team to provide some indication of their chances in the upcoming Asian Games in 2006 as the very same teams will be competing there. The women also played against Division Two men's team in the recent Kuala Lumpur League. For MWHA, it was an opportunity to gain exposure for the team and to allow them to execute new drills and test the effectiveness of new players. The national team had two tours this year.

In Australia, right after the KL League, the team managed two wins and lost five matches against Australian Division Two teams. On their tour to the prestigious Tenri University, one of the best hockey hubs in Japan, Kumar's team won three games and lost three. The year's end brought a high note for the women at the four-nation tournament organised by the Singapore Hockey Federation.

They thrashed Hong Kong 10-0, Chinese Taipei 5-1 and Singapore 5-0 to become champions of the tournament, making all the trips and effort put throughout the year worthwhile. The Malaysian girls had indeed gained from the foreign tours, playing in the KL League and in the Senior Asia Cup in New Delhi, India, and the fact that they have a fulltime programme and a foreign coach. On the domestic scene, several new programmes were introduced to make hockey attractive at the grassroots level, a crucial factor for the development of the game. The Junior League, moving into its fourth year, saw the introduction of a newly-designed tournament format and the inclusion of a new tournament, the first-ever Sports Unite-NSC-MILO Indoor Hockey tournament.

From the looks of it, indoor hockey is set to become an integral part of the MWHA domestic scene. The year 2004 also saw competitions in the Champion Schools tournament, National U-15 tournament, and Sukma. The on-going Raja Noora Aishikin (RNA) Cup, designed to ensure that the ladies above the age of 21 would have an avenue to enjoy hockey, saw the participation of a record number of eight teams. Internationally, two officials were appointed for positions in the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF). MWHA secretary S. Shamala was chosen as the secretary of the AHF Task Force for Developing Women's Hockey in Asia and Anant Kaur was picked to be a member of the AHF Umpiring Committee.

After playing second fiddle for a long time, it would seem that MWHA are slowly putting the pieces into place to bring women's hockey out of the dark.

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