Story and pictures by Leslie Tan
NUS Field, Saturday, February 2, 2008 – The National University of Singapore (NUS) lived up to their pre-game billing as favourites to see off the Singapore Management University (SMU) 8-7 in a wet, muddy game full of controversial calls by the referee.
SMU went for the jugular from the kick-off, pinning NUS in their own half for the better part of the first 10 minutes. NUS broke out momentarily to relieve the pressure and managed to get themselves near enough to attempt a penalty goal which they missed.
Andrew Lee (#27) of NUS then showed what his team was feared for when he picked up an SMU clearance and returned it a good 30m at full speed. The attack came to nothing but gave an early indication of how NUS would play a game reliant on the pace of their backs.
SMU then came close at the 18th-minute mark. Amos Siow (#10) of SMU kicked an accurate ball that set up an SMU line-out 10m from the NUS try line. SMU won the line-out through Daniel Marc Chow (#8) who passed it on to Desmond Wee (#22) who seemed to have gone over for a try. However, the referee did not give it. Continued pressure saw SMU camped near the NUS try line but the pressure yielded no points.
Having survived the SMU onslaught, it was now the turn of NUS and Andrew Lee again showed blistering pace with a 60m run from deep inside the NUS half. Again the NUS attack broke down, ironically with a dropped pass by Lee.
At the 30th minute, SMU threatened again, getting to the NUS 22m line for a line-out that delivered three close attempts at the try line. Again, SMU thought they had gotten a try with one of the three attempts, and again, the referee did not see it, much to the frustration of the SMU team and bench.
The simmering anger over late tackles and niggling fouls that weren’t called finally boiled over and it wasn’t all that surprising when Valmiki Nair (#8) of NUS and an SMU player (sorry, missed his jersey number) both got sin-binned late in the first half.
A missed penalty attempt by Md A’srie (#13) at the end of the first half meant both teams walked off 0-0, a score that left NUS feeling relieved and SMU feeling robbed.
The second half began with NUS piling forward and forcing the pace. It soon paid off within minutes with Johnny Chen (#24) of NUS going over for a try which was not converted by Md Shafiq (#9) for a 5-0 lead.
But the SMU response was fast. Within 5 minutes, an SMU line-out about 10m from the NUS try line produced a legitimate-looking try for SMU that was not given for the third time in the match.
From the resultant scrum, SMU finally got points on the board when Daniel Marc Chow (#8) hauled himself over for a try, letting out a blood-curdling scream at the nearest NUS player within his line of sight as he got up. The conversion by Amos Siow was good and the City Boys were now 7-5 leaders.
From then on however, it was an NUS show as the experienced team with five national players camped in the SMU half for the rest of the game. A good series of passes between Thomas Zhang (#22) and Johnny Chen (#24) threatened down the left flank but went nowhere. NUS persistence paid off when they won a penalty but Valmiki (#8) missed the attempt again.
The game rolled from one flank to the other to the other, with NUS probing the SMU line of defense and threatening to barge down the door at any moment, but SMU held firm. Finally, on the fourth attempt, Valmiki finally managed to zero his foot and put the ball through the posts to give NUS an 8-7 lead. A late NUS drive saw Valmiki cutting through the SMU line but he was hauled down, leaving the final score an 8-7 NUS victory.
“We feel robbed,” said Amos Siow of SMU. “One try, I can understand. But to deny us three is unbelieveable,” said Alex Chew (#11) of SMU, sporting a bruised right eye suffered from the NTU game the week before.
“We couldn’t translate our first half pressure into points,” said Desmond Wee of SMU. “In the second half, all credit to NUS, they pinned us in our own half.”
“It’s hard, you know, we all know each other from our secondary school and JC days,” said Md Shafiq, captain of the NUS team. “We knew this would be a close game.”
More pictures in the gallery.
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[…] NUS (2-wins-0-losses) have a game in hand over SMU who have a 2-1 record, their sole loss coming against NUS in a 7-8 reverse. When it became clear over the course of the game that SMU would walk off the winners, it then […]
With all these talk about the referee and how he performed, we seemed to have forgotten the rugby that was played on the day. Both teams played really well.
Considering the emotions involved and the significance of the match, the standard of the game was very high and both teams should walk away feeling proud.
Keep it up boys!
i’m a rugby player and also a trained ref with match experience, and I was at the game as well. While I’ll agree that being a ref isn’t easy, the ref in question (Kelvin Lee) made far too many basic errors – not being positioned correctly to spot any potential scores when the try line beckoned (this from video evidence too), not keeping up with play at the breakdown, the list goes on. The many missed late tackles can be forgiven because we know not all referees are as adept at spotting foul play after the ball has moved on, but fact is the basics of refereeing must be upheld.
Besides, isn’t it a common assumption that the attacking team should be given the benefit of the doubt? If the referee was placed such that he was on the wrong side of the maul which eventually leads to a try being claimed(3 times), is he right to assume that in all 3 occasions that ball was held up just because he did not see it grounded?
hey i have to say that being a ref is definitely not easy.theres so many things to look out for and im sure he did his best! if u think u can do a better job,why not u try ref one game and see how u fair? =)
It was really unfortunate that SMU was robbed of a victory due to POOR REFEREE-ING. Credit to both sides for putting up such a fantastic exhibition of rugby. The standard of refereeing in Singapore is atrocious. Something needs to be done.