Friday, January 6, 2012

Malaysia to set up camp in Cardiff ahead of Olympic qualifiers

KUALA LUMPUR: The national hockey team will set up camp in Cardiff from Feb 28-March 5 prior to the Olympic qualifier in Dublin.

The Cardiff camp is to allow the players to acclimatise to the weather and to play matches against Wales ahead of the Dublin qualifiers, which will begin on March 10.

The national team hope to play at least three matches against the Welsh national side between March 1-4.
The national team have also finalised their programme for this month and are just waiting to confirm the series against Japan next month.

Malaysia’s programme will start with the six-match series against China from Jan 10-20 at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

This will be followed by a tour of Australia from Jan 28-Feb 4. They hope to play four to six matches against the Australian Development team in Perth.

Malaysia Hockey Confederation (MHC) secretary Maninderjit Singh said yesterday that the team should have around 20 matches under their belt prior to the qualifiers.

Malaysia’s main threat in the Olympic qualifier, from March 10-18, are world No. 6 South Korea.
The other teams in the fray are Ireland, Chile, Russia and Ukraine. Only the winner will make the cut for the London Olympics.

The national team had earlier been offered the University of Bath as a possible camp site before to qualifiers.
But they decided against it after arranging the matches with Wales, who wanted to play in Cardiff.

The Malaysians will move to Dublin on March 5 and their opening match will be against Chile (March 10).
The MHC have also arranged for a three-day motivational camp, run by the National Sports Institute (NSI), for the team in Port Dickson from Feb 17-19.



By S. RAMAGURU - THE STAR

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