Skip to main content

How good is Hawgood?


AUSTRALIAN Neil Hawgood has emerged as the foreign candidate singled out by the Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) to coach the national team next year.

Hawgood, 52, announced his desire to coach a senior men’s team in Asia following his decision not to renew his contract with India’s women’s team last month.

He is best remembered for

guiding India to the bronze medal at the Incheon Asian Games in October and the Junior World Cup in 2013.

It is learnt that the offer from Malaysia was the reason he decided not to continue coaching India.
The agreement to hire Hawgood, however, has hit a snag as the understanding to hire him was reached when Datuk Seri Zolkples Embong was still the director-general of the National Sports Council (NSC) before Ahmad Shapawi Ismail replaced him recently.

MHC officials met Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin recently over the hiring of Hawgood but it is learnt that the minister did not give his go-ahead due to outstanding issues.

Despite the development, it is said that MHC will announce the appointment of a foreign coach this week.

MHC president Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, who favours a foreigner to train the senior team, was supposed to reveal the identity of the new coach last weekend but postponed it due to the floods in Pahang.

The national trainees are now under interim coach Tai Beng Hai, who replaced Arul Selvaraj, whose temporary appointment was until the Asian Games.

The other coaches, who handled the senior team this year were South African Paul Revington and K. Dharmaraj.

Newly appointed NSC director-general Ahmad Shapawi claimed he is clueless about MHC’s intentions to hire Hawgood.

“I have neither received anything or got a phone call from MHC in regard to this matter.
“I may have a clearer picture when I punch in for the first time as director-general on Jan 5.

“I, however, heard that the MHC met the sports minister recently,” said Ahmad Shapawi yesterday.
Beng Hai, who is assisted by Stephen van Huizen, is preparing his 25-member squad for the World League Round Two in Singapore on Jan 17-25.

Malaysia are favourites to win the tournament which will feature Japan, Poland, Bangladesh, Fiji, Oman and Ukraine.

The team will play friendly matches against Poland on Jan 4 and 6 followed by a game with Bangladesh (unconfirmed) before Beng Hai names 18 players for the competition, which is part of the qualification process for the 2016 Olympics.



By AJITPAL SINGH  - NST

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ex-coach's jail sentence cut to a year

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal yesterday sentenced former athletics coach C. Ramanathan to 12 months' jail for molesting two junior athletes 19 years ago. A three-man bench led by Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus unanimously dismissed Ramanathan's appeal against conviction, but varied the jail sentence of four years to a year, which was to run concurrently. Following yesterday's ruling, Ramanathan, 75, a former teacher, walked out a free man as he had served 10 months in Kajang Prison. Convicts get one-third remission for good behaviour while in prison. However, he will lose his pension. Hishamudin, who sat with Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail and Datuk Linton Albert, said the court found no merit to overturn the conviction. "However, in reducing the sentence, we considered Ramanathan's age and the long years the appeal has taken." Deputy public prosecutor Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud submitted that then High Court judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid E...
2 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Rajagobal Let Off The Hook

PETALING JAYA, April 24 (Bernama) -- National head coach Datuk K. Rajagobal was let off the hook by the Football Association of Malaysia's (FAM) Disciplinary Committee after finding no evidence that he had violated FAM's Article 88, as claimed. FAM Disciplinary Committee chairman Datuk Taufik Abdul Razak said the committee had decided not to charge Rajagobal after carefully analysing the video of the post-match press conference by the 56-year-old coach. "After listening to the recording of the post-match press conference, we decided to drop the charge against Rajagopal as he did not make such a statement. "Maybe his (Rajagobal) assessment and comments of the match was misconstrued by the media. There was no mention of the FAM policy throughout his comments," said Taufik after emerging from a three-hour Disciplinary Committee meeting at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, here, Wednesday. Rajagobal who does not mince his words when asked to com...
4 comments
Read more