News

04-01 Razie cherishes chance to play big names

2011-01-04 09:01:00

KUALA Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC) defender Mohd Razie Abd Rahim is braced for a torrid time in this weekend's Premier Division matches of the Malaysia Hockey League (MHL).

The 22-year-old will need to be on top form when his team face Sapura on Friday and Yayasan Negri Sembilan (YNS), two days later.

This is because both Sapura and YNS have an array of world class foreign players, including Pakistan's Rehan Butt, Shakeel Abbasi and South Korea's Lim Woo Guen

It is going to be a hectic weekend for Razie but the national player does not fear these players. In fact, he is excited about facing these international stars as he wants to gauge his prowess against them.

Sapura, who demolished ATM-Airod 7-2 in their opening match on Dec 18, have a good mixture of former and current national players and foreign stars.

Rehan, who helped Pakistan win gold in the Guangzhou Asian Games, heads the stars list together with Woo Guen, S. Kuhan, Jivan Mohan and Azreen Rizal Nasir.

Razie will have his hands full against YNS as they have Shakeel Abassi, Muhamad Imran, Mohamad Rashid and Muhamad Waqas, four players who were in the Pakistani gold medal winning side in the Asian Games.

"It is going to be an exciting but difficult weekend for us. Sapura and YNS are strong opponents with their international stars. These matches are important as we need to win both after losing our opening match to Tenaga Nasional," said Razie yesterday.

And Razie is relishing the chance to face the Pakistan players especially Shakeel once again.

"Shakeel is a very skillful player and can cause damage if left unchecked. He has the ability to unlock the tightest of defences with his crafty play and we must be wary of him," said Razie, who helped Malaysia win their first silver medal in the Guangzhou.

"It is not just Shakeel, but the others also pose a big problem if given space and time. They also have Prabhjot (Singh) and Deepak (Thakur) who are deadly in the semi circle."

Razie, who has represented Malaysia in two Asian Games and one Commonwealth Games, has 84 international caps and 27 goals under his belt.

He started off as a forward but switched to defence when representing Kuala Lumpur in the Terengganu Malaysia Games, two years ago.

"Our problem at KLHC is getting the players to play to their true potential. We seem to slacken at times and need to focus on the task at hand," he added.

NST