Story and pictures by Leslie Tan
ACJC Field, Saturday, February 16, 2008 – The Singapore Management University (SMU) beat the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) 27-10 to win their second game of the Tri-Universities Rugby Championship and set up mouth-watering clash this Saturday against the unbeaten National University of Singapore (NUS).
SMU and NUS share the lead at the top of the table with 7 points each but unbeaten 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 became a question of whether SMU could gain the extra point for winning by four tries or more.
SMU showed their intent as early as the 2nd minute when a drop-kick attempt by Amos Siow (#10) hit the right upright and bounced out. By the 4th minute, SMU were in the lead when Daniel Marc Chow (#8) went over for a try which Siow converted for a 7-0 lead.
From the restart, it was all NTU pressure resulting in a penalty attempt in the 7th minute by NTU’s Aidill (#23) that fell short. By the 18th minute, prolonged NTU pressure paid off when Aminurashid (#14) of NTU went over for a try on the right flank after a SMU passing mistake. Aidill missed the conversion and the score remained 7-5 in favour of SMU.
Then it was the turn of NTU to make a handling mistake that allowed SMU to gain significant territory, advancing inside the NTU 22m line. From a scrum, Sherman Yeo (#1) of SMU went over for a try that was successfully converted for a 14-5 SMU lead in the 22nd minute.
SMU continued to put on the pressure but a drive fell short right at the NTU tryline. A promising NTU attack towards the end of the first half proved likewise fruitless and the teams walked off with SMU in the lead and contemplating their chances for a four-try victory and the precious bonus point.
Amos Siow of SMU missed his first penalty attempt early in the second half but made up for it with a successful one in the 9th minute to make it a 17-5 lead for his team. Another successful penalty at the 14th minute by Amos made it 20-5 for SMU but they were coming up short on try attempts. SMU finally got one more try in the 31st minute through Amos after good work by his teammates opened up a hole for him down the right side for him to run all the way for a dive under the goal posts. Amos promptly got up and converted for a 27-5 lead.
However, hopes of a four-try victory went up in smoke when Daniel Huang (#17) of NTU scored a try in the 35th minute after his team breached the SMU defense. His teammate Daniel Thiam (#13) missed the conversion and the game ended with SMU winning 27-10.
With this victory, SMU are now second in the table even though they are tied on 7 points with NUS, who have a superior points difference. This leaves SMU needing to win their final game against NUS this Saturday to give them any hope of winning the Tri-Universities Championship.
For more details on fixtures, tables and scorers, please visit the Fixtures+Results page.
If you know the names of the players, please feel free to leave them in the comments section and we’ll update the captions. Thanks.
For more pictures from the game, please visit the gallery.
o man…so sorry! There must have been a mixed up.. so sorry Les, Joel And Zhen JIe.
Hi tri-uni,
Venue of game between NUS and SMU is updated.
Last week, two photographers went all the way to NTU based on the info we had here on Red Sports.
So apologies again to Joel and Zhen Jie.
So ruggers, nice to know that you have fans who bother to show up for your games, huh?
OMG! look at the third pic… the guy catching the ball seemed like he’s going to tear his ACL anytime! In rugby, is grabbing a person’s leg a foul anyway?
hey les, is it possible to put up the venue of our next game? Its at RI rugby field on the 23rd Feb, Saturday, 5pm kick off? Thanks!
Sorry, it’s Aminurashid, not Amino…
3rd Photo – (SMU) Chong Wei Nurn offloading the ball
6th photo – (SMU) Alex Ong and (NTU) Sidney Kumar
7th photo – (SMU) Lorenzo Escano Lim