| Fadhil Yunus |
BRUNEI Darussalam national coach Shaiful Azli bin Abdul Rahman has called stakeholders to be patient in the long-term rebuilding process of the hockey squads following their recent outing in the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Hockey World League in Singapore.
“The stakeholders should practice a lot of patience because gaining the expected outcomes in this sport cannot be done over a short term. We need to develop the sport with thoughts in the long term,” Shaiful Azli said on the sidelines of an appreciation dinner on Wednesday.
“The other countries who have enjoyed success did not take a short-term approach for one or two years but rather takes a long term which in a minimum the very least four years”.
The head coach referred to an article that it took a period of three or four Olympic cycles which is equivalent to 12 to 16 years to yield desired results of grooming a well-nurtured Olympian gold medallist.
He added that national teams should not be hurried into producing immediate results which prompted the need for the changing of mind-set.
The national head coach felt that they have achieved their targets after an eight-year absence from international competitions.
Brunei Darussalam national coach Shaiful Azli bin Abdul Rahman (R) presents the Most Valuable Player award to Mohamad Alisam bin Haji Awang Momin. – MOHAMAD ASYRASYRAMIE
The men and women teams competed against a number of top Asian hockey teams in the world but the performance that stood out was the men’s 3-0 defeat to Hong Kong in the second day of the tournament.
“In terms of results, obviously it did not favour to the team and in terms of rankings, we are unranked as opposed to nations like China, Sri Lanka and others who are among the elites of Asia,” he continued.
“But in terms of performance and the commitment that the players gave, I felt that, as a coach, this team carries huge potential to go farther from where they have now.”
The former Malaysian international pointed out that the heavy loss in that game did not entirely reflect on his side’s overall performance as he thought it was well balanced between the two teams regardless of size and experience.
“When we lost to China 11-0 who is 19th in the world. We succeeded in going forward and came agonisingly close of producing a goal where we also enjoyed a penalty corner.
Shaiful Azli noted the positives after seeing his charges limiting China to only three successful conversions from a total of 19 penalty corners.
He also expressed his intention to lead the team during the SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur next year.
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