New Zealand once again held the advantage over Malaysia as they registered a 6-1 victory to claim the bronze medal in the 31st Sultan Azlan Shah Cup International hockey tournament in Ipoh this evening.
The win over the Speedy Tigers in an action-packed third-fourth place match was the Black Sticks’ second encounter against the host in the SAS Cup tournament, having carved a 2-2 draw in the round-robin fixture.
The final day proceedings also drew a big number of fans, estimating close to 4,000, who came to throw their support behind the Speedy Tigers in this match.
Sarjit Singh’s Speedy Tigers threw all they had at the Kiwis, putting some exquisite plays together, but going was tough. New Zealand goalkeeper Leon Hayward was a stumbling block.
The Kiwis, who showed themselves to be real tournament contenders alongside Belgium and India, dismantled the Malaysians early in the game with a brace from George Baker in the fifth and seventh minutes for his sixth goal in the tournament.
James Hickson bagged the third goal with a minute remaining to the end of the first half as the 2025 Nations Cup champions held a 3-0 lead.
The merciless mission continued in the third quarter when team captain Sam Lane further punctuated Malaysia’s hopes of making a comeback by scoring a hattrick (33rd, 34th, 41st) from a penalty corner conversion, a field goal, and a penalty stroke conversion to extend New Zealand’s domination with a commanding 6-1 lead after Faizal Saari pulled one back for from a penalty stroke in the 43rd minute.
The result means the Malaysians failed to repeat their 2022 gold medal-winning effort, and finished in fourth place for the ninth time since the tournament began in 1983 as a biennial contest.
As for the Kiwis, who emerged champions in 2012 and 2015, this is the seventh time they return home clutching the bronze medal.
MALAYSIA: Sarjit Singh (Coach)
It’s the same. We conceded two early goals in the first few minutes. That’s where it was difficult to chase the game. Because we tried to chase the game and then we conceded the third goal. But after that, I think the boys knew this game is going to be very tough.
But even though we were down by 5-0, we still came back and tried our best. I think we could have scored another few more goals, but finishing was not good. In front of the goal, you need to score a few.
The score should have been another four or five for us. But 6-1, we have to accept. New Zealand played very well.
NEW ZEALAND: Greg Nicol (Coach)
We always plan to play our best hockey on the last day of a tournament. We did that at the Nations Cup against Pakistan and so really pleased that we can finish the tournament with a performance like that.
Malaysia is always a tough team at home to play against and for us to be as clinical and as aggressive as we were in the first half, is really pleasing for me. We’ve done that twice now in Malaysia. We did that against Pakistan in Nations Cup and now we’ve done it again so that’s something we’ve been working towards. Obviously, we’ll look back at the tournament and our performances.
We could have got a result against India. It was tight and obviously Belgium played too good for us on the night. So, we’ll look at that but really pleased to be finishing the tournament on such a high.
