Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) are coming up with a plan for the national women’s squad, that will be geared towards getting them to break into the top four ranking in Asia.
The women’s side of the sport has been largely dominated by India, China, South Korea and Japan but MHC is hopeful of getting there in the next few years.
Vice President Prof. Dr. S. Shamala, cited 2016 as a very important year for the team and plans to use it as a platform to prepare the team for several big tournaments in 2017 and 2018.
“I am very happy with the team’s achievements in 2015. We go to retain the gold medal we won in the SEA Games for the sixth time. We also presented a great performance in the second round of Women’s World Hockey League before losing 0-1 to Poland in the semi finals and missed our chance to qualify for the Olympics,” said Shamala as quoted from Sinar Harian.
“Now we have Terry Walsh (technical director) and Muhammad Dharmaraj Abdullah (coach). Dharmaraj has a splendid record with the men’s youth team and I thought that he was very creative in motivating the players, so it was a good thing that he was willing to be our coach,”
Next year will see the comeback of the National Women’s Junior Hockey League (NWJHL), which is scheduled to take place in either February or March. However, the key events will be the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games in 2017 and the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia.
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