The Young Tigers ended their journey in the 12th Sultan of Johor Cup by finishing in sixth and last position today after going down 3-0 to the Japanese in the shootout following a 2-2 draw in regulation time at the Johor Hockey stadium in Taman Daya today.
The Malaysians gave early hope of their first victory in the tournament when they held a 2-1 lead with goals from Che Nor Aqilrullah (33rd) and Harris Osman (50), after Yuto Higuchi equalised for Japan in the 48th minute via a field goal in this fifth-sixth placed encounter.
With two minutes remaining at the end of regulation time, the Malaysian defence cracked open and Japan were awarded a penalty stroke. Jun Watanabe made no mistake from the spot as he flicked the ball into the top of the net past goalkeeper Mohamad Rafaizul Saini.
In the ensuing shootout, Japan Higuchi, Jota Nakajima and Yamato Kawahra were successful.
Following five consecutive defeats in the round-robin format matches, the national juniors went into today’s encounter with the intention of avenging the 1-4 defeat against the Japanese last week.
The Young Tigers head coach I Vikneswaran, said: “If you have seen the match, it’s a game we should have won. We had more penalty corners and more ball possession. We had more of everything. Towards the end we made mistakes. That mistake cost us. In the last two minutes we allowed them to level the score.”
“Looking at that very seriously we will go back and rectify these mistakes. We can play well and take the lead, but in hockey, sustainability is important. If we compare today’s match with the previous encounter against Japan, there has been a lot of improvement. On the field management is important if we want to win matches. We gave away a very soft penalty stroke which I feel can be avoided,” he added.
Moving forward to the junior’s preparation for the Junior Asia Cup in Oman in November, he added that with just three weeks remaining until the start of the tournament, they will continue training at home and do all the repairs.
“We saw all the world class teams in this tournament. They exposed a lot of things. Now we will take all this information and repair it and make it better. We have been getting a lot of penalty corners but our conversion rate is low. We will go back and see what needs to be done,” said Vikneswaran.
Malaysia and Japan in action during the 5-6th place match in the SOJC at the Johor Hockey Stadium on Saturday.