Muraleedharan to appraise juniors in friendly games

The final squad of 18 players for the eight-nation junior hockey tournament starting on Jan 17 at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil will be named after the seven friendly matches against the New South Wales team.

V. Muraleedharan, who was appointed as the new national junior coach last week, said that there are 31 players in training currently.

“The first friendly match is on Jan 3 and we have to name the team a few days before the tournament begins on Jan 17,” said Muraleedharan, who will be assisted by Gurmit Singh.

The other teams in the fray are 2005 Junior World Cup runners-up Australia, India, Holland, Germany, Pakistan, South Korea and New Zealand. All the teams featured in the 2005 Junior World Cup in Rotterdam except for New Zealand.

The eight-nation meet is organised by Malaysia Hockey Federation (MHF) as part of the preparations for the 2009 Junior World Cup, which will be jointly organised by the MHF and Singapore Hockey Federation (SHF).

Both Malaysia and Singapore qualify automatically for the 2009 Finals as the hosts.

Muraleedharan replaced Tai Beng Hai, who quit as the juniors’ coach in October after a series of poor results by the national juniors in international tournaments.

Meanwhile, MHF secretary Hashim Mohd Yusoff said yesterday that the Malaysian Junior Hockey League (MJHL) will begin in the first week of February.

“We will have two divisions and the closing date for entries will be the middle of next month,” said Hashim.