KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian senior hockey team have been having trouble scoring from their favourite "gold mine" in previous tournaments, and so coach A. Arul Selvaraj is bent on using more set-pieces during the Oman Olympic Qualifier starting on Jan 15.
The Oman meet offers the three medallists a ticket to the Paris Olympics, and Arul's men are ready to grab one. Malaysia are in Group A with Great Britain, Pakistan and China while Group B consists of world champions Germany, Canada, New Zealand and Chile.
The first step is to qualify for the semi-finals, and in their final training session before taking a short New Year's break, no direct drags were trained but a few "new" penalty corner variations were executed time and again.
"Penalty corner drag flicks used to be Malaysia's saviour in many international matches previously, but with first runners becoming faster and faster off their line and post-men more accurate in stopping balls, Malaysia's PC scoring rate has dropped.
"In fact we need at least six PCs to score one direct drag goal in a match now as defenders are more deadly. That's why more set-piece drills are being conducted in the run-up to Oman," said Arul.
Malaysia's PC scoring rate in the Bhubaneswar World Cup, Chennai Champions Trophy and Hangzhou Asian Games last year was way off target than their usual stats.
But it's not only Malaysia who have dropped their PC percentages, but it looks like a worldwide phenomenon.
At the end of the group stages in Bhubaneswar, only 42 out of 243 PCs won by teams were converted into goals, compared to the 2018 World Cup which was also held in Bhubaneswar, which saw 57 penalty corners being converted out of 254 won at the end of group stages.
"Some of the set-pieces witnessed during our final training session did produce results during the recent NZ Tour, and I believe they will come in handy in Oman as well," said Arul.
Failure is not an option in Oman for Arul's current batch, as Malaysia last played at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and this batch of players will not be able to last until Los Angeles, 2028.
