MSSM
The Education Department sports division organized squash every year in both state and national level. So this year's national level tournament was held in Ipoh, Perak. The place for taugeh chicken.......white coffee and the claimed beautiful girls (yet to meet one yet...hahaha). So Ipoh it was. I had to get there from KL....immediately after the Milo All Star.

What a shock when I got there!!!! Went with a few parents to drop their kids at the hostels, but something told me to checkout the conditions of the place 1st. We checked the girls place 1st and the toilets were in no condition to be used. Dirty, stinky unpleasant.......minor words to describe it. Dorms were no better either, dirty rooms and mattresses were there to be seen. And that is for the girls.

The boys place was far worse.....Toilets had no doors, broken beds and cupboards....one way to describe it..not fit for humans. Maybe 30 years ago it might have been okay but not now. There need to be a minimum acceptable standard for school hostels and maintain it!!!!. Mind you, the schools were supposed to be good schools in Ipoh.

So, we asked if all the players were willing to move to a hotel on their own cost, all of them agreed to. Mind you, I was there as an observer not an official. The teachers were in charge but they dare not or just didn't want to do anything. So we moved the kids the next day to the hotel. They had to cramp up but at least a lot better than the hostel especially the hygiene part and air-con as well.

That didn't go too well with the teachers and there was an air of displeasure from their part. But I didn't bother and took the responsibility in ensuring that the players were there on schedule and their safety as well. A planned trip of 2 days turned to 4 days........had to move my trip to Singapore to later and cut it short.

The tournament was runned quite well and smooth. I would expect that after 5 years of learning. Matches were on time and efficient. Again, refereeing was a big issue here. Some of the teachers never played squash and were refereeing. They were atrocious!! The cheeky players conned their way to wins and the referees let them. Disgusting standard.

I also noticed that there were a lot of teachers there but were not doing anything to help their teams or the tournament. Looks like they were there for a holiday and some even brought their families. CHOGM- Cheap Holiday On Government Money.....that's the term they use. What a waste of public money!!!

As for the team, their performance was disappointing. With the absence of the top guns who were in Singapore for the Asian Junior Championships, I expected a few of them to stand up and be accounted for. But they didn't and couldn't. Maybe that is why they are not up there with the cream of the country. Given the opportunity and they can't grab it. That were my older players.......they younger one did very well and seemed very hungry for success. The confidence and focus level of these younger kids are superb, much better than the older ones. Guess it's time to focus on the younger ones now.

Asian Junior Championships in Singapore
Missed the earlier rounds due to the MSSM debacle. Only managed to reached there for the finals, where Wern managed to get through. The rest of the players were out by the quarterfinals and so much was left hanging on her shoulders to be the Asian champ since Nicol. I reckoned that she should be tired by now as it has been 4 weeks of squash non-stop since Sukma. She was up against a Hongkie that won the World Junior team title last year.

And how true it was as she started on the wrong foot. She lost the 1st game 9-1 in just over 5 minutes. I was like thinking well there goes our chance again. You see, although she has made much progress over the years, we will always be reminded by the higher authority that she missed out on the British Junior Open a few times, coming close but missing at the last hurdle. And so, you can't blame me for having to dread the "I told you so" lectures from them again and the "we can do better than you" comments.

But knowing Wern so well, a slow start doesn't mean the end of things. Slowly but sure she started getting int the match with some encouragement and cheering from the crowd. Managed to squeeze the 2nd 9-7 and the 3rd 9-6. Almost there........but could she that she was knackered. Will there be enough left in her tank to do it? Thank goodness there was and she duly won it 9-5 in the 4th, capping a fine month for her.

Finally, a major title that has been eluding her and to silence the higher authorities for a while. Hoepfully that will give her a massive boost for this year's British. Kudos to my coaching staff who have worked their asses of to finally reap the rewards of their hard work. For the rest of the Academy players that went there, well done but there's still a lot of work left to be done. Keep working harder to get what you want.

More updates to come........among them the newly announced pay structure for coaches by he government and updates on the players.

PENANG JUNIOR OPEN

This year we had about 250 entries with India having the most foreign participants followed by Japan and Australia. We also had for the 1st time a Swedish participant. The ratio for Malaysians : foreigners was about 50 : 50. The tournament was runned smoothly and so much easier compared to the previous years because of the improvements we made. Added a PA system and had the army boys helping us out with the courts and refereeing. Wasn't the best refereeing but sufficient for the time being.

Need more help for next year and I hope that I will have a bigger budget for helpers/referees. I have been asked to make the event bigger but I think the numbers now are just nice. Any bigger and I think we will be too chaotic. I want to keep it as a smaller and more relaxing event for the foreign and outstation teams, not a massively big event.


The hardest part was that we had to immediattely prepare for the organising part as soon as we arrived from Alor Setar that night. Setting up the tournament control and putting up all the draws took a while. So pretty much had to stay the night at the courts as I finished everything at 2 a.m. Crazy? Nah! That's my life.....totally revolves around squash.


MILO ALL STAR

This was immediattely after Penang and it had 600+ entries. It became the biggest junior event ever held in the world. But it was the most chaotic as well. So stressful when we found out that we had to cover 3 venues, 2 in PJ and 1 in Shah Alam! Had to be up at 6.30am every morning because I covered the Shah Alam courts. Transport schedule was also another problem as it was not evenly scheduled. 1st bus at 7 a.m. and the next bus at 1 p.m. , just CRAZY!!!


I have stopped sending big numbers for this tournament for the last few years already and a few other states are following suit. The All Star is supposed to be the Malaysian Junior Open, so I only send the best and those who can compete at an international level. The rest that needs international exposure can use the Penang tournament as it is smaller and lower standard. We need to remember that as coaches we have to match the tournament to the ability of our players, not because there is funding for it.

Any way, the Milo All Star even received thumbs down from the foreigner who have been going there for many years. The comment was that it was getting too big and the organisation of it was going down. Time to buck up, you people!


That's all for the 2 tournaments. Next up will be MSSM.....and that will be a juicy write up.

What a busy month! I will actually write about the tournaments that have gone on and might take a while though. So you guys need to be patient to read through all the stuff.

SUKMA 2006
Individual Event
This bi-annual event is the Malaysian Games proper and the only multi-sport event in the country. The squash event was scheduled to finish well before the official opening ceremony to enable the calender to accommodate the Penang Junior Open and Milo All-Star. Ths event was a U-18 event and only 4 gold medals were at stake, boys & girls individual and boys & girls team. We were the clear favourites for the girls events but if we could get a medal in the boys, that would have been a big bonus. That was our wish.

But when the individual event got on the way, Randy Lim managed to force his was into the finals by beating the top seed in the semifinals. That was his first win over that player this year and what a win. It was a 5 game thriller. The girls on the other hand easily made it an all Penang final with Wee Wern playing Nabilla.

The finals were on and we were trying to go for a clean sweep. We were really rooting for Randy to pull off another upset against his opponent. And how he fought! Another 5 game thriller and to our dismay, he lost this time. He just ran out of steam and plus the fact his opponent had an easier semifinal helped. But still a great performance from him. Wee Wern showed that she was a class above everyone else by just dropping 5 points in the finals. That was the most in the whole tournament.

Team Event
With the individual event done and surpassing our initial target, we got on with the team event. The boys were not fancied to even win a medal, so we just set a semifinal target. That we achieved and were down to play the favourites again, Selangor. With Randy in fine nick, we were praying for a miracle that one of the other players would nick us a point. And so it happened as Kesh Singh managed to beat his opponent 10-9 in the 5th. What a match!! Gave us a heart attack. Randy was on next and he duly delivered with another 5 game win. So we were in the finals!!! So unexpected and we were euphoric. The girls did their part again by reaching the finals as well.

Again we were trying for a clean sweep but with the schedule against us, the boys were up against the impossible as the finals were in the afternoon, 3 hours of rest. As expected the girls won but abeilt a scare when Wee Nee struggled to a 5 game win. Her match was littered with errors, maybe match jitters. Wee wern put the matter beyond doubt with an emphatic win. So 1 in the bag. The boys were tired, especially Kesh and Randy but the went out there to win. Kesh could not sustain the pace and lost. Randy, wanting to make up for the individual lost, fought gallantly but had to succumb to a fresher opponent.

So the final tally of 2-3-0 put us as overall winners of the squash event. How it would have been if we had our number one player! A clean sweep maybe? Well, something to ponder on.

The venue was newly prepared for the games and was good except the slippery floors, which could have been avoided by sanding it earlier and getting the home team to train there. Organization of the event was top notch and smooth. Only blot was the refereeing, which was generally poor although they were supposed to be national level. An area that needs to be looked into seriously.

That's all, keep on checking on updates and happy squashing.