Going into the lions den is an intimidating task for anyone.
Thus one can only understand how UniKL feel as they take on Terengganu Hockey Team at the Batu Buruk Hockey Stadium on Friday.
What is more surreal is the fact that they will face the defending champions again on Sunday at the Pantai Hockey Stadium, the start of the second round matches.
UniKL have suffered two successive defeats in the past week, losing 2-1 to Maybank in the league and 2-3 to Tenaga Nasional in the knockout.
And they are well aware that they need to be at the best to avoid a mauling against a resurgent THT side that finally seem to have found its winning ways after a rather indifferent start to the season.
" It will be very tough against THT as they are several classes above us," said UniKL coach Arul Selvaraj.
" Getting one point off them in the two matches can be considered a huge bonus to us.
" We will have to play smart and not open ourselves at the back as they have players who can punish us.
" It will be important for us to make full use of any penalty corners that we are awarded."
UniKL have been poor in the penalty corners as evident in their last three matches where they only managed 2 goals from the 18 penalty corners awarded.
And they also were punished when conceding penalty corners as against TNB they let in two soft penalty corner goals.
With Baljit Singh and Mohd Sufi Ismat Rohulmin back in the team, Arul has a full team to pick from.
" We are injury and suspension free so we need to lift ourselves from the two defeats and get a good result this weekend," said Arul.
" It is a vital weekend and we have told the players that a point from a possible six is what we are looking at as we have to be realistic."
