PETALING JAYA: A. Arulselvaraj praised the Speedy Tigers for the positive response to their mauling at the hands of hosts India in the Asian Champions Trophy (ACT) in Chennai.
The national hockey team had lost 0-5 to world No. 4 India in their third round-robin match on Sunday but bounced back strongly to beat Japan 3-1 a day later to seal their spot in the semi-finals.
Najmi Farizal Jazlan (12th minute), Ashran Hamsani (36th) and Shello Silverius (58th) scored the goals for the Speedy Tigers while Takuma Niwa nicked a consolation just after Shello’s strike.
“The players controlled the game well,” said Arulselvaraj.
“Their ball positioning and movement was better compared to the match against India.”
The team had a day’s rest yesterday before their last round robin match against South Korea today.
In earlier matches, Malaysia had beaten Pakistan 3-1 and China 5-1.
The team are currently second in the standings with nine points and are one point behind leaders India.
Malaysia will face the third placed team in the last four. Currently, Korea are third with five points.
Arulselvaraj is determined to help the Tigers avoid the mistakes made against India.
“We will do a post mortem on the match against India (to analyse the mistakes made),” said Arulselvaraj.
“We could not do this earlier as I wanted the players to forget what happened and focus fully on the match against Japan first.
“We will also prepare well for the match against South Korea.”
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