THE Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) has finally released rugby captain Zulkiflee Azmi (pic) after a long wait – and that’s good news for the national team.
The 27-year-old experienced winger, who guided Malaysia to their first gold in rugby at the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games in 2017, will get to represent Malaysia at the Philippines SEA Games in Angeles, Pampanga, from Dec 7-8.
Zulkiflee has been undergoing police inspector training at the Police Training Centre in (Pulapol) in Kuala Lumpur since February.
He joined the national team in training on Monday.
“The national team have been trying to get my services for the last few months, ” said Zulkiflee, who has don the national colours for nine years.
“I must thank PDRM for giving me the permission to play in the SEA Games although I have yet to complete my training.
“I’ve been released from Nov 18 to Dec 15. I only joined the team for training on Monday as the national team were overseas for competitions.”
He is not worried although he would only have a short time to train with the team.
“I’m fit to play as I’ve done a lot of physical activities during the police training, ” said Zulkiflee.
“I’ll try to combine well with my teammates as fast as I can as we’ll face stiff competition in Manila this time.
“Hosts Philippines have shown a steady progress as they did well to finish fourth in the Asian tournament (in Incheon, South Korea last week) and we (Malaysia) finished sixth in the nine-team field.
“We are unsure of Thailand’s strength as we have not played against them in a competition for the last two years.”
The other teams in the fray are Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos.