While others may rejoice when punitive action is taken against their foes, it was a different case for Paul Revington when contacted by this blog to comment on his resignation as national hockey coach.
" Please make it clear that I am not agreeable on any punitive action on Dharma and Lim and it is not a good decision for Malaysian hockey should they be removed from their positions," said Revington in a brief conversation after the MHC Coaching Committee had come up with a shocker of a decision.
" In particular for Dharma as he has worked on the juniors for the past three years and should be allowed to carry on with his responsibilities with the juniors. I had made it clear to MHC that any punitive action will not change my decision to resign."
Revington has however not shut the door completely on coaching the team further as he is scheduled to have an audience with HRH Tengku Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah soon and hopefully common sense will prevail.
While Revington did not want to reveal what would change his mind to remain in charge, he however made it clear that things started going downhill after the Champions Challenge in Argentina last year.
"There was a sense of despair when nothing was done by those concerned when I raised the issue of the email from Lim, it was as if nothing had occurred and I was just left to fend for myself,"said Revington.
"And there was utter confusion from the players when we regrouped as they were as confused as I was on what was happening.
"This affected my confidence, gave rise to a whole lot difficulties to carry out the responsibilities and above all shredded whatever confidence I had into developing Malaysia into world beaters."
Revington also remarked that he was initially warned about the Malaysian media but found no issues handling them but was disillusioned as to how his good intention s were misjudged by those in the hockey family.
It is also baffling as to why the Coaching Committee came up with Sarjit Singh as a possible replacement given the fact that it was only Revington that had resigned and his assistant Arul Selvaraj quite capable of coaching the team for the World League semis on an net rim basis.
In addition their proposal to recommend action against Dharma and Lim could be overstepping their boundaries to a certain extent.
Dharma stands accused of interfering with decisions of the national team and it probably has to do with the fact that the Malacca born coach had made a statement that he welcomed former juniors skipper Faeez Ibrahim to train alongside his charges when he was dropped from the senior squad.
To be fair to Dharma, he restrained the said player from taking to a TV station who wanted the duo to make a statement agai st Revington, telling the father and son to move on and respect the decision of Revington.
And as so far as junior players n the team not adhering to Revington's instructions, the senior coach found no such problems in naming three players from the junior side n hos16 for theWorld League on Friday.
Lim comes under the purview of the 1Mas Steering Committee chaired by NSC Director General Dato Seri Zolkples Embong.
It was the lack of action by Zolkples that probably led to the resignation of Revington as opposed to the lak of nii active from the MHC or its various committees.
Both Lim and Revingon answer to the same boss in NSC and realistically this problem could have been nipped in the bud had there been more discussions taking place instead of saying that the issue was solved when it clearly was simmering to the extent that the volcano erupted this week.
Rumors of the resignation surfaced in the middle of the week and it was on May 27 that Revi get on submitted his resignation letter to the MHC President.
However technically Revingon cannot to have been considered resigned as he has yet to submit a letter to his contracted employers , the NSC.
Lets hope that after sleeping it off tonight, all involved will have a cuppa on Sunday morning and settle their differences.
The hockey fraternity needs to show togetherness more then ever and I pray that all involved put the hopes and aspirations of the nation over everything else.
Actions and resignations will not help the cause and let's have closure....or more resignations are bound to follow.
