Singapore Women's Squad Eye Sea Games Final

By R. VIKNESWARAN KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 16 (Bernama) -- Last edition's host Singapore, hope to make it to the final of the women's hockey competition in the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games, said its Australian coach David Viner. After claiming the bronze medal when hosting the biennial Games in 2015 under Malaysian coach Sunil Prasad, the island nation is now up to challenge Southeast Asian powers, especially host Malaysia and Thailand. Despite facing heavy defeats to Thailand (0-4) and Wales (0-7) in the ongoing Women's Hockey World League (WHWL) Round Two Group A matches, the 66-year-old's confidence level remained high. "We are preparing for the SEA Games, we have people from the Singapore Sports Institute to help improve the performance of players. Playing in the final is our target and yes, we can see improvement in the squad despite having some injury problems. "The main problem for me is to gather the players as they are busy with their studies and work. Besides, they are always nervous in the last 25 meters and miss scoring chances against strong opponents, maybe because of reputation," he told Bernama. Viner said the squad with an average age of 19, need to put in effective plans and programmes to achieve the target, besides improving its world ranking from the current 43rd position. "We need to have a systematic plan to move up the ranking list, you just cannot go up to 20 from 43, you need to move towards 30 before getting into 20. Before playing in this WHWL, we played two test series in Hong Kong to improve the quality. "While playing against Wales yesterday (Sunday), certainly we lacked the depth but the players did their best. We have a very young squad and it was a good exposure against an European side," said Viner, who took charge of the team in September 2015. Singapore will conclude their WHWL group fixtures against world number 15 and tournament favourite Italy, at the Tun Razak Hockey Stadium, Tuesday. For record, in the 2013 SEA Games, Singapore just managed fourth place after losing 0-1 to host Myanmar in the 3th/4th classification match playoff. Meanwhile, for the indoor category, Viner said Singapore were currently playing in a mini tournament against teams from Malaysia and Indonesia as part of preparations under a different coach. A total of four gold medals would be at stake in the men's and women's outdoor and indoor events during the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games, scheduled from Aug 19-31 this year. -- BERNAMA