Former national coach saddened by decline in Malaysian rugby
KUALA LUMPUR: Revered former national head coach Wan Ibrahim Wan Chik is not surprised to see the national squad being relegated from the top-tier of the Asia Rugby Championship (ARC).
Malaysia will play in division one — which is the second tier of ARC — for the first time since 2017 next season after being thumped 59-19 by Sri Lanka in a relegation-cum-promotional playoff in Colombo last week.
Malaysia had won its two previous encounters with Sri Lanka in 2016 (42-17) and 2017 (22-9), the latter securing promotion to the ARC top-tier for 2018.
Wan Ibrahim, better known as Pak Wan within the rugby fraternity, said he is sad to see Malaysian rugby in the state it is today.
Wan Ibrahim is also the former Tunku Mahkota Ismail Sports School (TMISS) headmaster and helped develop many of the players that have represented Malaysia over the past two decades.
"To be honest I expected us to lose to Sri Lanka. It is disappointing as we have not lost to Sri Lanka in recent years," said Wan Ibrahim when contacted today (April 21).
"This shows that we are getting worse as time goes on. If we do not get our programmes right at the lower levels, this is what happens.
"There are still players such as Nazreen Fitri Nasrudin, whom I coached at TMISS 15 years ago, still in this national team.
"I am not saying Nazreen is not a good player, but the question is, are the current crop of players not good enough to the point that we have to depend on players from more than 10 years ago?"
Wan Ibrahim added that there are a number of reasons behind the decline of Malaysian rugby.
He stressed that the national body — Malaysia Rugby (MR) — must address the situation swiftly and take action to correct issues from the ground up.
"One reason is that there is very little continuity in the development programmes for young players at the moment. When players from TMISS and Malaysia Pahang Sports School end their studies, they essentially stop playing rugby because they have nowhere to go and very few competitions to compete in," said Wan Ibrahim.
"During my time, TMISS players would be channeled to Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) which is the centre of excellence for university rugby in Malaysia. I am not sure what happened to the programme.
"Another major issue is that there is currently no national inter-club 15s competition being held. Players need tough domestic competitions each year to develop their game and remain sharp.
"Even TMISS used to field a team in the Super League previously, which allowed our young players to get match exposure week in week out during the season.
"I couldn't tell you how good the current batch of players from the sports school are because they haven't had the chance to compete in such a league. Age-level competitions or sevens tournaments don't give them the same exposure.
"Having a domestic club league would also ensure our national team has a decent selection of naturalised players — usually Fijians — to choose from because the clubs would bring them in and keep them on their books.
"For the Sri Lanka match we still depended on Etonia Vaqa Saukuru, a player we have been depending on for the last decade.
"At the moment, we only have corporate leagues and state level leagues for 15s competition in Malaysia but the level is not the same as the Super League."
MR previously held the Super League, later known as the Malaysia Rugby League, for clubs annually, however, it has not been held since 2019.
TMISS would field their under-20 players — who were taking their pre-university courses at the school - in the competition.
University sides such as Serdang Angels (UPM) and UiTM Lions would also lock horns with traditional big guns such as Cobra, Negri Sembilan Wanderers and Keris Conlay in the league.
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