KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian hockey team will return from a bruising Nations Cup on the proverbial "crutches" after suffering a humbling experience in Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Their world ranking also suffered a beating as South Korea wrested the 10th spot away from the Speedy Tigers who slipped a rung to 11th.
Malaysia dropped a total of 66.52 points in the Nations Cup, and are currently on 1,840.08 and Korea have 1,853.02 points.
A bad 1-0 start against South Korea, a 3-0 hammering by Ireland in the semi-finals, and then a massive 4-0 defeat to South Korea in the bronze battle sum up coach Arul Selvaraj's outing.
After winning the Azlan Shah Cup by beating South Korea 3-2 in Ipoh, it looks like Malaysia are heading south while the Bhubaneswar-Rourkela World Cup date of Jan 13 is fast closing in.
But Arul is optimistic. "Overall, it was a good outing as many others received a chance to gain experience as we lost seven core players for the Nations Cup.
"Although they (replacements) struggled to fill the gap in key positions, but I believe they will learn from this experience.
"Even though we lost (in the knock-out stages), my players gave their best. We lacked power as a result of not having enough players to make substitutions.
"But everybody tried hard and that's important," said Arul.
In a way the fourth placing was a blessing because if Malaysia had gone on to win the Nations Cup, they would have had to play in the Pro League which demands a tiring travelling schedule apart from costly expenses as well as the risk of dropping more ranking points.
That's because Malaysia will be playing against established sides from Europe and Oceania as well as India in the Pro League, and by the end of the day it will be a much more humbling and bruising experience than the Nations Cup, not to mention the heavy financial costs.
After all, Malaysia had declined an invitation to play in the Pro-League before, and their ranking stayed at 10th while South Africa dropped from 10th to 16th by playing in it.