Both the teams were awarded early penalty corners in the
initial minutes of the match but none managed to capitalise the opportunity.
The two teams played an attacking game from the beginning with intent to take a
lead over the other and create pressure on the opposition but simultaneously a
display of strong defence in the quarter by both the sides made their scoring
efforts futile. Unfazed, the Malaysian women did not give up hope and it was in
the 11th minute that they earned the first goal of the game from the stick
of Norazlin Sumantri. With this field goal, Malaysia
took a lead of 1-0 over Thailand .
Upbeat on their lead, Malaysian women commenced the second
quarter with zero intention to let Thailand score while their strikers
looked out for gaps in the defence to post a goal. Playing throughout in the
opponents’ half, the Malaysian eves were successful in building pressure on Thailand as the
latter struggled hard to find a scoring prospect. Striking back again in the
final minutes of the quarter, Malaysia
doubled its lead over Thailand
when Fazilla Silin Sylvester converted a penalty corner into the second goal of
the match. Half time closed with Malaysia
leading over Thailand
2-0.
Entering the third quarter, the women from Singapore were
still unable to break down the firm defence of the Thailand Women hockey team.
Though the quarter saw a dry run with no goals scored, Malaysia
impressed the spectators with some stupendous stick work and swift game play.
The scores remained unchanged as Malaysia
led with 2-0 over Thailand .
With game entering the last quarter, the scoring endeavours
shored up from both the ends. While Malaysia
looked at maintaining the dominance and the lead in the match, Thailand women
aimed at opening their scoring account and reduce the score gap. Malaysia was given a penalty corner in the 49th
minute and Fazilla for the second time did the task of converting the corner
efficiently as the score for Malaysia
ascended to 3 nil. With no further goals scored, the final scoreboard
showed 3-0 announcing a triumph for Malaysia .
Contented with his team’s performance, Coach of Malaysia Md
Nasihin Nubli Ibrahim said, “Very happy to have finished at the third
position though our aim was to finish amongst the top two but we are ok as we
still qualify for Round 3 being the hosts. This was one of our best tours. I am
really happy with Norbaini Hashim along with the captain and vice captain as
full backs. India
being another Asian team in this tournament, we would like to wish them luck
and hope they win it.”
Remarking on the match, Coach of Thailand Young Wook Bae
said, “We took this match as a practice match as we will face the same
team in the upcoming South East Asian Games which will be held in June 2015.
Our players missed many opportunities and failed to control the ball most of
the time but the fact is we have many young players in the team and they are
improving match by match. The tournament was very successful for us as we
improved our FIH ranking and managed to finish fourth. Our team played against
European teams for the first time which is a good experience for us.”
HI Press release
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