It was a rainy Saturday morning

We are just 2 weeks away from the zone tournament and yet we are not there yet, in our game and team spirit. After 2 weeks of carefully structured training, we were at Tun Razak Stadium this morning for a friendly game with KGT Puchong. It was scheduled to start at 9 am but the rain kept on pouring showing no sign of stopping! Finally we started with hitting and stopping practice. Soon the two coaches decided to just go on with short corner training. Despite the heavy rain, our boys obeyed our instructions, pushing, hitting, sweeping and flicking the balls.

At about 10.05, KGT Puchong marched into the field and we got our boys ready. Somehow from their faces(R10 boys) I could tell that things would not go well. They were not nervous but just feeling dreadful! No sign of 'I'm gonna whack these fellas black and blue', or no indication of
' Okay, we are ready to show them what 2 months of gruelling training can do to them'! Instead, what was demonstrated was ' Wanna play huh...ok lah!'

The KGT played their normal game, quick passes accurate shots and blah, blah, blah. R10 boys also played their normal game(when they play a strong team), looking at how people dribble them, weak tackling just for the heck of tackling and of course and always on the menu...trying to dribble through the opponents(just like trying to drive your car through the front door, see if you can be at the living room without a scratch)! To cut the story short, our game was not very pretty(the scoreline was....no good.)

I started to think, after 2 months of hard training! Something must be not right. But the systematic trainings, the coaches and committee meetings(at Syawal-consists of parents and a teacher) to overcome the shortcomings... nah... maybe the players! So, after a short brainstorming we felt that these R10 boys are burning out. No more steam, no more excitement(not 'gian' to play anymore) and spirits are waning out.

Therefore, the committee think that we have to device a way to get them to be excited again. Some suggested we give 'makan-makan' and some said go to 'teh tarek' stall(one suggested to get them to watch a hindustani film). Finally... as always, our 'sponsor' (name cannot reveal here) saved the day! He had made arrangement for 4 National players to talk and motivate our boys. Tonight we(the committee) will have a meeting(at Syawal) to prepare for the arrangements of these national players visit(like what food to bring, camera or at least handphone camera-parents are actually good at all these).

Lastly, what do we learn today? Instead of thrashing KGT Puchong, we were the one who got whack black and blue. But hey...don't feel down, always look at the bright side of it... tomorrow we get to meet our national hockey player!
...Iskh