Contradictions from National Junior Coach

Someone who has a keen knowledge of Malaysian hockey had e-mailed this interesting comment and obviously wants us to understand the prevailing contradictions that comes from the National Junior Coach.

"Can the jury arrive at a verdict after scrutinizing the facts?

Fact 1.

Competitions Committee Chairman, Manjit Majid Abdullah right up to the Council Members are blamed for the Junior poor performance, during the recent Junior Asia Cup.

Muralee wants to call the shots.: 16th July 2008 – Local Paper

Does he know the reasons of the failure and can the coaches be given a freehand to call the shots?

Excerpts from the local papers:

THE Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) calls the shots when it comes to the release of Junior World Cup-bound players for local tournaments and coach V. Muraleedharan (pic) wants to change this.
Muraleedharan, who has lost patience after a series of failures, wants his players to be barred from all local tournaments in preparation for the world meet, which Malaysia will be co-hosting with Singapore on July 7-21 next year in order to ensure a respectful showing. He attributed the poor performance in all tournaments for lack of training time to rectify the team's weaknesses."I wanted to work with them between March and June for the Tour of Europe and the Junior Asia Cup, but training was halted for two months because of local events (MJHL and Malaysia Games)," he said.

Fact 2

Who made the decisions to release the players?

Sat, 5th Jan 2008 - Local paper

The 32 national juniors’ trainees were barred from playing in the National Under-21 tournament, which ends today.

However, national juniors coach V. Muralidharan wants his charges to be released to play in the MJHL, which will begin on Feb 4.

“The Junior World Cup is only next year. There’s no point for them to continue training.

“It will be better for them to play in the MJHL as it will give them match exposure,” he said.
“Anyway, all the states will field teams in the league in preparation for the Terengganu Sukma (Malaysia Games) in June.

“And the states will definitely want their national juniors to play for them in the MJHL.”
He also said that he would propose to the competitions committee that this year’s MHJL be made an Under-20 tournament instead of Under-19.

“By raising the age limit, there will be a bigger pool of players to select from for the Junior World Cup. And those who are 20-years-old will be eligible to feature in the Junior World Cup next year,” said Muralidharan, who was appointed as the national juniors coach last month.

Tuesday 22nd Jan 2008 – Local Paper

There is a proposal to release the national juniors to the teams on the condition that they will be back in training under coach V. Muralidharan from Monday to Wednesday each week.

Muralidharan said yesterday that it was all right for the national juniors to take part in the MJHL.

“We can start our full-time training later after Sukma (Malaysia Games) in June. But we have asked for the teams to ensure that the players will be back with us for three days in a week,” he said.

“We need to work on certain aspects of their game and we cannot grant a blanket release. We understand that the MJHL teams also need their services.

“We hope this will be a win-win situation for both parties. We have talked to several coaches of the teams and they are agreeable to this option.”

Tuesday, 22nd Jan 2008 – Local Paper

There are 32 players in the national junior training squad and Muralidharan said that they would monitor their performances in the MJHL and also look at new talent.

He added that besides Sukma, the players would also be release to play for their states in the national schools (MSSM) meet in March.
The Malaysian Hockey Federarion (MHF) secretary, Hashim Mohamed Yusof, said that their council would make a final decision on the proposals made by the national junior team management on Saturday.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel, bro...? "

It would be good if MHF can comment on this matter i.e the contradictions.