KUALA LUMPUR: Consistency will be key for KL Hockey Club (KLHC) in their bid to make an impression in the Malaysian Hockey League (MHL) Premier Division.
KL Hockey Club’s (KLHC) 4-2 defeat to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) on Sunday was surprising but not totally unexpected.
KLHC were seen as the favourite in that match, solely due to the fact that they had six foreign players in their line-up as opposed to TNB who had an all-local outfit with 10 of them being current senior and junior internationals.
TNB’s win was not totally unexpected as KLHC could have been affected by the congested fixtures. They travelled to Kuala Terengganu to play Terengganu Hockey Team (THT) on Friday before returning to KL on Sunday for the match against TNB.
Fatigue could have contributed to the defeat but KLHC coach Lim Chiow Chuan refused to use it as an excuse.
“Credit to TNB for winning the match in convincing fashion,” said Chiow Chuan.
“We only played well in patches and were left chasing the match early on. The fact is we did not play well and failed to take our chances.
“The travelling excuse is not why we lost as we did not play well and the opponents made every chance count.
“ But we need to learn from this and look ahead.
“As I said before, it’s about consistency.
“There are still many more matches to go and the defeat will make us stronger.”
TNB had served notice of their intention of being contenders when they defeated UniKL 3-2 in their first match.
But UniKL bounced back to trash Maybank 6-0 in the following game.
“We took our chances but I am still not happy with the delay in getting the ball out of defence,” said UniKL coach A. Arul Selvaraj.
“We really need to do better in our penalty corners.
“It is always good to win a match big but we need to look for consistency in performance.
“I believe if consistency is maintained then the results will follow.”
Ironically KLHC and UniKL will play each other on Wednesday and both need the win for contrasting reasons,
KLHC want to get back to winning ways while UniKL want to continue collecting points.