RUGBY
Polytechnic-Institute of Technical Education (POL-ITE) Games 2007/2008
Singapore Polytechnic vs Republic Polytechnic
Tuesday, 4 December 07, 6:00pm at Yio Chu Kang Stadium
Story by Muhammad Hannan. Pictures by Shaun Chook.
Singapore Polytechnic (SP) trounced Republic Polytechnic (RP) 38-9 in their opening game of the POL-ITE Rugby Championship last week.
RP’s fly-half Husain tackled 5m from his own goal line. © Shaun Chook
Anyone who has followed POL-ITE rugby will tell you that Singapore Polytechnic's pack of national age-group players would have an easy time against minnows Republic Polytechnic. But it was not to be as Republic managed to rack up some points this year.
The game started brightly and the scent of arrogance from the Singapore Polytechnic players were evident as their substitutes were rowdy right from the start. Singapore Polytechnic kicked off and were fast to close down Republic Polytechnic's receiver who was brought to ground for a ruck. Republic opted to kick the ball out to safety from the ruck.
From the line-out, Singapore Polytechnic fed the ball to their backs who did damage as Republic found it hard to contain them. An opportunity arose for Singapore Polytechnic standoff Rex to unleash his trademark cross kick. Without hesitation, he kicked towards the left flag post, catching Republic's fullback, Kenneth, off-guard and he struggled to get across the width of the entire pitch to chase the kick which was easily caught by national age-group winger, Ryan, who ran in for an easy try. The conversion by Rex however went astray and the score remained at 5-0.
Singapore Polytechnic's second try came not long after off a scrum when #8 Ashraf picked the ball off the back of the scrum and dived over between the scrum-half and standoff. The conversion this time around was successful from Rex to make it 12-0.
Rex of SP executes a trademark cross kick. © Shaun Chook
Republic Polytechnic continued to struggle when they failed to win their own line-out as Singapore Polytechnic's jumper stole the ball to set-up a maul. The driving maul to the Republic goal line proved too much for RP as SP's Amir went over for his team’s third try. The conversion from Rex was again successful. 19-0 to SP.
With SP ahead on three tries barely 20 minutes into the game, frustration started to creep into RP as they were using excessive force with the foot to clear the men in the ruck. Tempers flared as pushing and shoving turned to punches. The referee controlled the game well and gave a stern warning to both teams. The game restarted with a scrum to Singapore Polytechnic but five phases on, SP were unable to convert their territorial advantage into points. SP's emotion got the better of them as they started shoving the RP players over minor incidents. Punches started flying with malice and the referee had to stop the game temporarily. Yellow cards were shown to SP’s Pi Xiang and RP’s Sasi.
With both teams down to 14 players, they started to play more running rugby. From a line-out, SP swung the ball out to their backs and their draw-and-pass tactics got them into space and another easy run for Ryan to add another try to his name. The conversion was converted by Rex and the first half ended with SP leading 26-0.
The second half started better for RP as they were awarded a handful of penalties due to SP's ill-discipline. RP had a good break down the middle when fly-half Husain ran past the entire SP defence only to be brought down by SP winger Ryan. The resulting ruck gifted RP their first penalty of the second half when SP players played with the ball off their feet. RP scrum-half Eugene saw his penalty attempt fall short to the delight of the SP players who counter-attacked.
RP jumper stretches long for the ball. © Shaun Chook
SP fullback Marah Fahmy was brought down close to the half way line and gave away a penalty when he failed to release the ball once he was on the ground. This time, RP kicker Eugene made no mistake with his second penalty attempt taken from a whopping 40m out to make it 3-26.
SP players started to lose their composure as they gave away more penalties, this time for a hands-in-the-ruck offence. Kicking from 30m out, RP kicker Eugene again made no mistake as his effort sailed past the inside of the post. The scoreline was now looking a little more respectable at 6-26.
SP were determined to get another try as they ran riot with many phase plays only to have their forwards falling short of the line for the try. A scrum was then awarded to RP 5m out from their goal line. The RP scrum-half passed out the ball to Hossein who was quickly charged down and isolated. SP forced a turnover and SP substitute forward Fuad got over for the try. Conversion was kicked successfully by Farhan to make 33-6.
As the game wore on, RP were awarded two more penalties, converting one and missing one to make the score 9-33. RP scrum-half was kicking very well considering the distance of his kicks.
A turnover ball gives SP’s scrum-half a run at RP’s defence. © Shaun Chook
However, SP managed another try at the end of the game when a kick and a chase from RP fullback Kenneth left the back empty. SP's Marah Fahmy caught the kick and chase and instantaneously kicked for the far right corner. SP’s Julius flew down the left flank to collect the ball and scored another easy try to make the final score 38-9.
Said SP coach Sam Chan of his team's performance: " The first team’s structure was really good. Their breakdown management was good." Of the second half penalties to RP, Coach Chan added: "The problems started once the reserves were put on. Players were not doing their job and as a result other players had to cover them, putting the goal line at risk. Therefore, some of the infringements were forced errors."
Republic Polytechnic’s Eugene was the man of the match with his outstanding kicking. "His penalty kick attempts were a joy to watch. I've not seen successful penalty attempts from that distance at this level of play." said a spectator at the game.
Singapore Polytechnic - 38
Tries: Ryan (2), Ashraf, Amir, Fuad, Julius.
Conversions: Rex (3), Farhan.
Yellow Cards: Pi Xiang
Republic Polytechnic - 9
Penalties: Eugene (3)
Yellow Cards: Sasi
More pictures in the gallery.
Hey guys im the writer. why you fellas have so much angst in you regarding the article?
its an article. take the positives of the game instead of one “degrading” word. you guys won. did your job. finish off the season on a high.
and dont worry about the other teams. if they are disrespectful towards the opponent, play dirty, i’ll be sure to write it down. Your article was the only “happening” one to write. the tp-np game was pretty stale. Nothing to write about.
So good luck to SP. You guys won it once last year. This year, I do see it as a consecutive title.
raul – ajay or sanjay..?
yeahhh!! eheh, i’ll change it to reality soon les.. cheers!
I feel your luv over high-speed internet broadband, Raul. I really do. 😉
hi les, u’re doin an job in this site… keep it up!!
luv you!!
Alright guys. Interesting to see your “team spirit” and confident. However, with all those big talk, we shall see if your performance is as good as your mouth. I’ll be looking forward to watch your games. Good luck guys!
ello ello…wad provocative….u lucky i say play without boots..i wanted to say wif underwear onli…anyway dun call us arrogant or rowdy…
last year botah tp flyhalf sit on the pitch while playing sp..dats nt arrogant ah…wad…u call it manners ah…botah u watch out ah…
anyway anyway….sp will win the tournament la..tis one nt arrogant this one confident…anyway best of luck to all teams ah…bye bye…
guyz letz stop this and put our talks to action!!
some luv bratherz!!
jamesbond wrote:
ARROGANT……..ok lor we arrogant lor…anyway we will whack all teams wif arrogance lor..and tp u wait…we play without boots lor…
Ed’s Note: The comment above was deleted by a Red Sports volunteer. He feared that it was too provocative. I’ve decided to reproduce it. I try as much as possible not to censor anyone unless it gets too unreasonable. I leave it to you readers to decide if what jamesbond wrote is unreasonable or not.
SP team mates, pls be humble. The website did a great job covering the match. Lets focus on our own job, which is to play our best in each game. Show respect for the other teams as well as the people from the website. Humble SP – artans! =)
Hello … er … jamesbond.
Your comments for some reason did not get posted. I saw them. Please feel free to repost and I will make sure they get posted up.
I didn’t censor them.
les
editor
Thanks for the name update, Hoovey. Sorry for the error.
I set up Red Sports so that:
a. folks can write about your games and take pictures of your game and get it published.
b. folks can read about your games and share their comments
c. More Singaporeans will know that we have a sporting culture all our own that the mainstream media ignores.
So the bottom line is this – if we disagree with each other, let’s state our case plainly and accord each other some respect. We are all on the same side.
Thanks for sharing your thoughtful comments above, sp supporter. I appreciate it. And I am sure other readers too.
You are rite Les,
The writer will try his very best to describe how the match goes with in depth story and sometimes using harsh words. The words used can be expressive but that is the way writer should do it. But the writer must accept critics because the way he sees it is different from others. Judging by the comments, the writer did well here.
The writer might dubbed SP as arrogant but some mite have different views on that. Partly maybe one of the reason is that they are the defending champion, thats why.
The way i see the game, SP was dominating but they are quite worried of failure so they need loads of confidence, hence the rowdy supporters. RP did really well to contain SP most of the game. SP is agitated by conceded 9 points from RP, all from penlaties. On the other hand SP need to buck up on its penalty conceding. Overall good start for both teams. Facts: SP have not kept clean sheet against RP before, for last 2 yrs in POL-ITE.
In my opinion the man of the match will be Albert Tan from SP. He had a great match.
Well, my observation mite be one sided at times coz i m an SP supporter.
I was once one of the leader of SP-artans. Winning the 06/07 title was sweet and trust me we are not arrogant, we are plain rowdy. =)
SP-artans!!!!!
cheap talks man!! well guyz, just keep this in MIND :
1) WE PLAY TO KILL !!!
2) NO SHIT WIT EMOTIONS OR FRIENDSHIP!!
3) FORGET ABOUT CARE,CONCERN N ALL THOSE SP-CORE VAULES!!
4) WE WIN TO BOOZE!! BEERS FELLOWS BEERS!!
5) WIN OR LOSE!! WE MUST STILL PARTY HARD!!
frm 1 N ONLY!!
– raul
GOOOOOOOOOOOOO…….. SP-ARTANS!! WELL DONE BOYS… GOOD TO SEE YOU ALL IN GOOD SHAPE!!
HANNAH….!! hannah…..ehehe
fellows we play this so called “arroance style” all the time.. therez no fights,therez no rugby!! aniway that was a small commotion, no blood shed so itz not a fight… Guyz just chill, have some beers,chickz n we’ll bag ivp 07/08 soon!!
ehehe, spartans mate!!
Spelling for “Hossien” would be Husain. Being a fly-half instead of outside centre. Do take note. 🙂
The thing about sports reporting is that everyone has an opinion. So on this site, you can state your opinion and obviously people can disagree with you. I accept any opinion as long as it is not racially or religiously denigrating.
So at Red Sports, I defend both the writer’s as well as the reader’s right to express their opinions.
In fact, as a reader, you are also welcome to put up your own story of the same game. There are no restrictions. I accord you the same rights as the writer.
Feel free to submit your stories.
you make ryan’s try sound so boring. come on man. he unleashed his trademark running. All you poly people, be prepared to see serious performance.
hahaha.. i can’t believe we were called arrogant.. if our confidence is so called arrogance then i think we are going to be arrogant on every game then.
Trust me, rowdy does not mean arrogance. Its a way to build up one’s confidence. Go SP-artans!!!