Hockey

'Penalty corner master' Kuhan starts work

KUALA LUMPUR: Double Olympian S. Kuhan has made a comeback to the national set-up as a penalty corner consultant for Malaysia Hockey Confederation's (MHC) three national teams.

Kuhan played in the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Olympics, the last time Malaysia qualified at that level. And the MHC want to tap his knowledge now that he has some time off from his engineer job.

"I have been busy working offshore for many years, and now I have some free time to impart some knowledge to the younger generation of hockey players.

"The game has changed much since my playing days, but penalty corners are basically the same. I can help, especially in the area of composure and calmness which is needed to score goals," said Kuhan who retired in 2007 with 341 caps.

The recent Bhubaneswar-Rourkela World Cup saw a decline in penalty corner conversions, as defenders "won the war".

"Yes penalty corner runners and defenders in almost all teams, including Malaysia, were very impresive during the recent World Cup. And so flickers must find ways to overcome this.

"We have some world class flickers in the senior team, and I also know the flickers in the national juniors as I have been keeping tabs on their progress.

"I am not a fultime consultant-coach, but will come in when needed by the other coaches to tweak and refine our junior flickers," said Kuhan who had his first training session with the National Juniors at the National Stadium in Bukit Jalil today.

Meanwhile, a Hockey 5s carnival will be held for the first time at the National Stadium this weekend for the boys and girls Under-11 and Under-15 categories. A total of 120 teams are expected to compete in the inaugural tournament.

In 2018, Malaysia stole the show at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires by surprisingly winning the Hockey 5s title after beating India 4-2 in the final.

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