Singapore men's hockey team pay for poor first half

SINGAPORE 2 

OMAN 3 

The Singapore men's hockey team have been getting pointers from hockey royalty, raising eyebrows with their showings on the training ground, but they just cannot seem to replicate it when it counts. 

Solomon Casoojee's charges brought the 500-strong crowd at the Sengkang Stadium to their feet in the second half of their opening World League Round 2 fixture against Oman yesterday, but they couldn't repair the damage done by an amateurish first-half showing. 

Despite flashes of brilliance, Singapore fell 2-3, and they still have Ukraine and Malaysia to come. 

"The Aussie guys (five-time world player of the year Jamie Dwyer and Co) were here training with the boys, and they said that some of the drills were performed to a world standard," said Casoojee. 

"We just can't seem to stay in that zone. It's not nerves, I think it's just that we're not used to playing at this level often enough."

Mark Knowles, Liam de Young, Rob Hammond and recently crowned world player of the year Dwyer have been training with the national team as part of The Project Group Academy since December. 

They would have been disappointed with the home side's first-half show, with passes going astray, poor control and easy concession of possession, and it was no surprise Singapore were two goals down at the break.

But the team turned it on in the second half, with the effervescent Ian Vanderput pulling one back, before Ashriq Ferdaus scored another through a penalty stroke, but it was too little too late. 

Casoojee was candid in his assessment of the team.

SLOPPY 

"I don't think Oman were lucky, we were sloppy in our basics, didn't adopt the structure that we wanted to play and gave two goals on plate to them," he said.  

"The second half we did much better and dominated the game. It's much closer to what we need to play, but still not quite what we're capable of.

"Overall, I'm okay with the performance - not happy with it - we only played to 60 per cent of our capability."

 Singapore will face Ukraine tomorrow and Casoojee will focus on the basics in training today. 

"We need to focus on core skills: trapping, weight of the pass, the timing of the pass - this is not the hard stuff," he said.  

"When you don't play often enough, you just zone in and zone out. We need the boys to pay a lot more attention to detail." 

A bright spark on the night was the performance of 27-year-old forward Vanderput, whose blistering pace caused pandemonium in the Omani backline. 

He will be crucial because Singapore have to beat Ukraine if they are to meet their target of finishing third in the group. 

Pool B results:  

• Japan 5 Bangladesh 1 
• Poland 6 Mexico 0