TUN ABDUL RAZAK HOCKEY TOURNAMENT

When the late Tun Abdul Razak was elected MHF president in 1957, he saw the need to have an annual inter state tournament. He worked tirelessly to make this dream a reality and even donated a trophy for this purpose.

All his hard work paid dividends when in 1963 the first inter state tournament was organised and the competition was named the Tun Abdul Razak Cup in honour of the man who thought up the idea.

Singapore won the inaugural tournament and the Tun Abdul Razak Cup has been held every year since. Kuala Lumpur are the most successful side, having won 19 editions.

The Tun Abdul Razak Cup is recognised as the Premier Hockey Tournament in Malaysia and it is no surprise many national players first cut their teeth playing in it.

After many years in 2011, under the former Presidency of His Majesty Al-Sultan Abdullah  decided to re-engineer this event for a better outlook of high quality matches for teams and to compete for a longer period of time and be well prepared for final stage. With that, the 49th Tun Abdul Razak Cup which saw the tournament entering a new era with a qualifying event.

Unlike previous years where the competition was held over two weeks or less, the idea of His Majesty was that Tun Abdul Razak Cup teams battling it out for two months, first in their respective zones and then in the final round where the 20 teams will be separated into two divisions of 10 teams each. Brilliant approach by Former President His Majesty. 

 

This reengineered version ensured that teams and players will have two months of competitive hockey via The Zonal qualifying rounds. The top two teams from each of the five Zones will qualify for the First Division while the bottom two teams will move into the Second Division. The final round will be held at National Hockey Stadium.

 

The 20 Teams are made of All 16 affiliates with the National Under-16 squad, Brunei, Singapore and Labuan featuring as invited sides.

The five Zones are as follows: North (Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Armed Forces), Central (Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Project 2017), South (Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca, Singapore), East (Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang, PDRM), West (Sabah, Sarawak, Labuan, Brunei). The fixtures shall cater for four zones and as for West Zone, the Annual Borneo Cup standings shall be used as an indication for Final Round.

Tun Abdul Razak Cup is one of the oldest hockey competition in Malaysia. It used to be the Premier Hockey event and most popular one but over the years it has lost its essence and significant without the qualifying round and maintaining back to 2 weeks Carnival format.

But this year edition 58th Tun Abdul Razak Cup needs revamp and soul searching to make this event as "The Premier Event" rather than just completing the Calendar.

Key Flaws of this years' Edition:

1. Fixtures

The person who drafted the fixture needs further technical training as many flaws such as - certain team plays night matches; 9.30 & 3.00 matches unfair to teams: next round should follow FIH Appendix 5 rule rather than draw lots (funny as event classification matches need to draw lot - first of its kind as done in sixes or nine a side events but this a Premier event); women biased due to X & Y where Champion gets 2 runner-up teams; back to back matches for teams - lack of sufficient rest between matches.

Due to bad fixtures, many players including National players got injured and it affected the tempo of match and recovery of fitness between matches wasn't a consideration as a priority.

2. Weather

When you decide an event, kindly look at weather as we all know that month of March/April and September/October are monsoon period. No proper thoughts given on weather conditions as there is no any contingency plan could fit in this cramped 71 matches utilizing 2 pitches. 

3. No Video Referral

When video referrals were first introduced as a trial at the men's Champions Trophy in Melbourne, Australia in 2009, the aim was to provide a way of reducing umpiring errors that may have a major impact on the result of a match. The system was quickly approved and used in the subsequent World Cup in Delhi in 2010.

After more than a decade, still not implemented consistently in National Championships such as MHL (one or 2 season with few matches only), JHL, Razak Cup & Sukma. Then how do our players and Umpires get used to this Video Referral. Actually it requires a minimum costing and easy to implement but the Organiser care less on the importance of such tool.

4. No Dedicated Website for the Event

Due to Covid19, there should be a dedicated Website for fans and hockey lovers to follow the statistics similarly to a TMS system on real time. But no thoughts put in! 

But under the scoreboard there is a website - www.mhccompetitions.com but is defunct and non operational as it leads to different non relevant web.

Even if there is a web but not many people aware of such information. No any hashtag or promo of any website for the event.

5. Format

With one Division, the format has failed as the gap between teams are huge in standard of play, margin of goals very high, no promotion & demotion between Division, no fair play of competitiveness and kill the motivation of participating teams as spending about 20-25k to play in this event.

6. Men & Women Event

It doesn't make sense to organize both events together due to:

- Overstretch of Resources such as Umpires & Technical Support.

- Publicity lopsided for Men more than Women

- Live Telecast siding Men more than Women 

- Women Teams have to play most matches in Morning session

7. Guest Teams

Organisers could consider inviting foreign teams to play in this event next year as to create more excitement and competitiveness.

Invite teams like Thailand, Singapore or Clubs from India, Australia, Pakistan or even from Europe as it will be a 2 weeks event.

For sure there are more than 7 points for the event to improve its stature. These are just the key points to improve this event further.

Anyway, Congratulation to Selangor Hockey for finishing 12th out of 15 Teams even playing 3 pool matches at night and with the special support of National Coach. It shows the sport is declining drastically in standard in the State of Selangor. The facts of performance over the years doesn't lie in determining the real current level of decay.

Selangor won 10 times this event and the team been playing in Division 2 since 2015 and failing to win any age group National Championship indicates that it needs an urgent CPR procedure to save it. Sad state of affairs. Selangor used to produce many top International Hockey players including Coaches, Umpires and Technical personnel. 

Way Forward, Selangor Hockey should call for a "Open Town Hall Session" by inviting all former Coaches & Former International and State players origin from Selangor to discuss openly without fear or favour on how to improve the standard of Men's Hockey and thereafter get the right people to be involved in the game across the board. Keep the politics aside for the sake of the State and sports. There are many capable people outside there who are eager and willing to help directly or indirectly. Be open and dare to call them and establish a common goal among all the stakeholders to drive this sports to greater heights.

Tomorrow will be the Closing of the Event as for Men the battle will be between Terengganu and Perak whereas for Women it will be between Selangor and  Pahang. Best wishes and may the best team wins.

P/S - As to all the readers out there, I would like to say "Thank You" for visiting this blog as viewer stats has passed 35k views.