11-3 defeat of Malaysia in hockey is diificult to "stomach"

Records are meant to be broken, usually to better one's performance, at least under normal circumstances. However, when Australia literally "whacked" Malaysia 11-3 at the 3-nation tournament at Melbourne, it must have sent "sparks of shock and disappointment" to all our officials both in Australia and Malaysia.

The results obviously have not broken a record but rather created a "new" one ie Malaysia's worst hockey defeat. More so, the opposition went into double digit, pretty much giving the impression that Malaysian hockey has registered itself in the "minnows" league of hockey nations. It would mean Australia scored a goal for each of their players.

Why such a devastating nightmare the players and officials have to go through? Just a few days earlier they "shocked" Australia by winning 1-0. Much earlier they were thrashed 8-1. Why the inconsistency?

The imaginary boundaries of many have gone into "mental gymnastics" providing sufficient speculation from players' revolt to incompetent team officials to Malaysia not having the material to compete with the best. The knives would be out to carve whatever reasons but the starting point is our international hockey has taken a drastic "beating". Be it Seniors or Juniors, the position does not give any "hope" for the future.

We can change the players, the coaches or the team managers but the point is whether we have a realistic outlook of what we are actually doing to ensure that we have talents or create talents to provide the "supply. Years and years of talking plus development programmes that were not carefully designed to be sustainable, added with the lack of good state and national leagues is a reflection of the decaying malaise that have got into hockey over the years.

All this is compounded by inactive Affiliates who become the core decision makers, without realising what disservice they are doing to the nation's hockey. It is not unusual to see the same old faces appear over and over year in and year out in MHF and yet they do not do anything in their state nor at national level. Their greatest role is to become part of the groups that "politic", bicker and allow their votes to be used for the wrong people for the various positions.

If an organisation is infested with such people and activities, we shall never get anything properly done, rather the whole scenario also starts to seep to the field. Therefore discipline issues among players become a bothering matter that is allowed to fester greater problems because of the lack of decisive actions. Decisive actions cannot be made because everything is built on"scratching the back" concept ie everthing is compromised.

Malaysian hockey is paying the price of years of dsyfunctional actions of MHF in the past and sadly the TM is unfortunately caught as he came in when the "bubble" was starting to crack. I hope he realises it and starts the change that is much needed for the future of Malaysian hockey..