THE national juniors should be commended for their decent showing at the recent Junior World Cup (JWC) in Bhubaneswar, considering that the Covid-19 pandemic had affected their preparations since 2019.
Wallace Tan's team finished eighth overall, an improvement from 11th in the 2016 Lucknow edition.
Previous junior teams had the luxury of playing at least 20 high-quality international matches before the JWC.
However, Wallace's side had only eight friendlies to iron out weaknesses ahead of the Bhubaneswar edition.
The team also lost eight core players as they were ineligible for the Under-21 JWC after the 2020 edition was postponed to this year due to the pandemic.
Considering all these challenges, the team did well to finish among the top eight junior teams in the world.
However, the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) should come out with solutions to improve the quality of their players as the huge margin of defeats to France (4-0), Spain (4-1) and the Netherlands (9-3) do not augur well for hockey in the country.
The team had lost the plot from the quarter-finals as they conceded too many penalty corners and made poor decisions.
Credit to them, however, the team had a good run in Group A with two wins and one draw to finish second behind Belgium on goal difference.
Overall, Malaysia were second-best among Asian teams, behind India, who took fourth position. South Korea finished 10th, one run above Pakistan.
Consistency and fitness were the main issues as the team could not sustain their performances in the knockout stages.
However, one cannot expect miracles from a team, whose plans were affected by Covid-19.
Malaysia will host the 2023 edition, and beginning on Dec 11, the MHC will scout for quality players from the Junior Hockey League.
For the 2023 edition, Malaysia should target the semi-finals to show progress.
In the final on Sunday, Argentina were crowned champions when they defeated Germany 4-2 while France overcame India 3-1 to finish third.