UniKL Hockey, which is known as UniKL-TRC (1-0-0) for this season, recorded a 3-2 win in a hard-fought game played at Tun Razak Hockey Stadium against 2009/10 Division 1 Champion, UiTM (0-0-1) on December 18, 2010. The game dubbed as “Battle of the Universities” saw UniKL-TRC playing catch-up game trailing UiTM twice before scoring the winning goal on the 70th minute. UiTM got the lead twice from goals on the 2nd and 41st minute by Izzwan Mohd Salleh and Faheed Saifullah. All UniKL-TRC goals were scored by Richard Petherick via penalty corners in the 16th, 47th and 70th minute who recorded the first hattrick in MHL Premier League 2010/11 season. Richard was also named Man of the Match after the game which was shown live on Astro Arena (Channel 801).

For the record, this is also the first win for UniKL Hockey in MHL Premier League after finishing 6th and lost in the quarterfinal stage of MHL Premier League 2009/10 season. The team which was previously coached by I. Vikneswaran (who is coaching Sapura now) rebounded from the 2009/10 Premier League season by winning the Overall Championship title of the Malaysia Junior Hockey League 2010. Now in its first season under the coaching of Darren Smith (New Zealand National Assistant Coach), UniKL-TRC targeted to do well and finishes Top 4 in the league and also to qualify for the semifinal stage. In order to achieve that, UniKL-TRC has to buck up and play to its true ability and avoid playing horridly as displayed in the UiTM game. UniKL-TRC next opponent, YNS (1-0-0), which paraded 11 imports including renowned internationals from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh comfortably beat former champion, Maybank 4-1 in the game played earlier.

UniKL-TRC coach Darren Smith was quoted as saying, "The early goal affected the players and they failed to follow the game plan. We made errors giving away the ball cheaply and paid the price for it. Many times the players tend to dribble instead of making a simple pass. But these things will need time to correct and while I am glad with the win, I cannot say the same for the performance. We need to be focused right from the start. But credit to Uitm though as they made us work hard for the win and I believe they will give a tough time to others as well with their hard running style."

UniKL-TRC will play another 15 matches before the league ends and enter the knock-out stage. For latest news, updates and info, UniKL Hockey team can be followed on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com; search “UniKL-IBIL Hockey Team”), Twitter (http://twitter.com/UniKLIBIL), UniKL Hockey Official Website and on MHL Unofficial Website (http://www.tnbmhl.com.my).

Reported by,

AMIR AZHAR IBRAHIM
Team Manager