Story by Les Tan. Pictures by Ng Cheng Cong and Marvin Lowe. Additional pictures by ACS old boy. Catch game highlights and the hakas by both teams on RedSportsTV.
Padang, Monday, May 12, 2008 – The Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) beat St Andrew’s Junior College 21-8 to capture the National A Division Rugby Championship title. With this win, ACS(I) made up for their 10-13 overtime loss to Raffles Junior College last year. The win is also extra special for this bunch of ACS(I) ruggers, with the core of the team having experienced the loss of three consecutive B Division finals to St Andrew’s Secondary from 2004 to 2006.
At 3:45 p.m., the 1,500 Saint supporters had already turned up in significant numbers while their rugby team warmed up on the grounds of the nearby St Andrew’s Cathedral. The crowd buzzed with excitement as the two teams lined up to stare each other down. As the Saints launched into a rendition of their haka, the clueless DJ and emcee continued playing loud obnoxious music and making unneeded announcements, wrecking the occasion for the Saints team and their supporters.
By the time the game got underway, the ACS(I) supporters were still smaller in number but the game is won on the pitch and ACS(I) showed their domination by squatting in the Saints half from the whistle, hitting their opponents with wave after wave of attacks. That early pressure brought ACS(I) close to the try line but they just couldn’t go over. All they had to show for their early effort was a Blandon Tan (#13) penalty to put themselves up 3-0.
That lead proved short-lived. From the restart, the Saints supporters in turn had something to cheer about when a handling error by Ian Gan of ACS(I) gave the Saints the ball at a line-out deep in ACS(I) territory. From the ensuing attack, a drop-kick attempt executed flawlessly by Jesse Quek made it 3-3.
Whatever hopes the Saints had of moving ahead in the game were quickly squashed though. ACS(I) came back with another penalty through Blandon Tan and they added another five points with a flying try by Md. Khairulanwar, his ninth try of the campaign. Blandon Tan converted beautifully from an acute angle from the left sideline and both teams walked off with ACS(I) leading 13-3 at the half.
Early in the second half, a brilliant mazy run by Alexander Chuang Yi (#11) of ACS(I) led to a try after some good work by teammate Ian Gan (#9), a move which had ACS(I) supporters in ecstasy and neutrals applauding in admiration. The conversion was fluffed but at 18-3, the game was now getting away from the Saints.
But Saints still made a game of it. Picking themselves up, Saints drove deep into ACS(I) territory, and their supporters hopes rose in tandem. This was now the high point of the Saints attack and as the wave of blue and white shirts moved forward, the ACS blue and yellow line braced for the attack. Saints forwards hammered away at the ACS defensive line, picking the ball and hitting against their opponents time and again, looking, probing and searching for that one weak spot to score against their arch-rival. Saints’ pressure brought them to within metres of the try line, their formidable forward pack the vanguard of their attack. They could see it, almost touch it, but every pick-and-go hit an ACS(I) wall and they just could not go over it. ACS(I) repulsed everything thrown their way and survived. Their line held.
Regrouping, Saints came back again, never giving up, and this time their efforts were rewarded. Captain Arthur Lim (#8) broke through with a try down the left flank, right in front of cheering supporters. The score read 8-21. Would there, could there be an improbable comeback?
Whatever flicker of hope they had were snuffed out when first, Saints kicker Kenn Wong (#7) missed from 10m out, right in front of the goal post, then Blandon Tan of ACS(I) put another three points on the board for his team to make it 21-8. When Blandon’s ball sailed through the posts, the whistle went, and ACS(I) arms went up in jubilation.
Saints were outfought on the day, their cause not helped by losing more than their fair share of line-outs and handling errors that stopped their attacking waves in mid-stride. On their day, perhaps they would have been a match, but this was not that day.
“The boys played to instruction,” said Coach Adrian Chong of ACS(I). “We disrupted their (SAJC) possession because we knew that when their forwards get the ball, it’s dangerous. The highlight of the game for me was the first try because we worked to win as many phases before unleashing our wingers. The boys managed to carry that sequence out to perfection.”
As the ACS(I) boys launched into their haka and sang their school song, old boys recalled their day on the Padang. While both teams will only have present thoughts of sweet victory or bitter defeat, the time will come when both will recall with equal relish that they, and nobody else, had played this day on the Padang.
ACS(I) line up:
Eric Ong (#1)
Bryan Wong (#2)
Liu Yu (#3)
John Yeo (#5)
Leo Yi Shyen (#4)
Timothy Gay (#7)
Martin Butler (#6)
Arnold Chen (#8)
Ian Gan (#9)
Shane Gan (#10)
Md Khairulanwar (#14)
Justin Boey (#12)
Blandon Tan (#13)
Joshua Rene Jeyaraj (#21)
Alexander Chuang Yi (#11)
Subs:
Jared Hoon
Douglas Wong
Isaac Lim
Ben Chong
Victor Tan
Sankaran
Joel Lim
Tanaan Quek
Marcus Ting
Saints line up:
1 Carlos Tan (#1)
2 Arthur Lim (#8)
3 David Tambunan (#4)
4 Jegathesan s/o Thanebal (#24)
5 Samuel Thio (#5)
6 Darrell Low (#17)
7 Daniel Lum (#6)
8 Kenn Wong (#7)
9 Chan Ming Qi (#9)
10 Farid (#16)
11 Abel Teo (#15)
12 Daniel Chua (#12)
13 Jesse Quek (#13)
14 Roy Tong (#14)
15 Sirhan (#11)
More pictures in the gallery.
Photo 19 its Irtiza not itiza
Thanks sajc rugger for your update of Farid
Glad to know he is fine
Tks for your reply.
Also to anon The referee had a good view of the tackle made by Blandon and deemed it legitimate At such the term ‘spear’ tackle cannot be used in this instance which warrants a yellow card and 10 min sin bin.
At the end of the day, Singapore Rugby will benefit. Once all these players leave their school.. they will come together one!
One positive gain from these strong rivalry between schools is that they are committed to be better than the rest.. thus, improving the standard of singapore rugby. in which now, all ruggers in singapore would agree.. that our rugby standard in singapore in terrible. considering the facilities, expertise and funding.. it’s time we buck up!
Keep up with the great effort coaches of these school!
Ponger, U r more than welcome.
Can sense your good vibes, and know no ill- intend.
Guess we cld be civil and agree to disagree.
We juz luv rugby and support our ‘heroes’
All d best to you and SA team.
THANK YOU. I’m glad people finally see I mean no harm haha!
It’s as easy as it sounds, Anglo Chinese played better hence they won. St Andrews played badly, they lost. they weren’t always gonna lose, they could have won but they didn’t i kinda agree with kuku they were too rigid in their decisions at the backline and that they let their forwards down who were excellent. Their 5-8 has got to get bigger and make better decisions. The outside center of Anglo Chinese is a monster, he is huge and strangely enough no one here has commented on that big hit on the St Andrews player, really awesome tackle.
puny farid is fine:)
To Ponger haha,
good to note yr sense of humour. This site shd be for friendly discussions, with no intend to kill.
my last sentence was NOT an insult directed at u, juz a sweeping statement.
‘…eh but rj imports alot of darn gd players fm everywhere, its also a new team of sorts, not the same people playing tgt….”
U r darn right on tis. But herein lies d irony–last year’s RJC winning team comprised of 5-6 ACSI ruggers (J2), at least 1 SAS (kevin neo) and maybe somewhere else???
These ‘talented imports’ had only 1-2 yrs of traing tgt. Yet d result—the coveted title ( now that was a close game : 13-10 )
By contrast, tis yr’s team has only 1 ACSI (J1) rugger ( dun think was fielded agst ACJC semi game ) and probably less than a handful other ‘imports’. D rest r predominantly RI thru-train ruggers, traing 5-6 yrs tgt.
By such logic, tis yr’s team, not last yr, shd be d winner.
So how cld ACJC (with only 1-2 yrs tgt) trounce (a 6-yr)RJ team 29-0???
( and won them not once, but twice ).
Traing many yrs tgt does not equate “half a victory” secured. And “half a victory” secured doesnt win u d war. Its a ‘BATTLE’ out there man!
By now, I hope most will get it.
Cheers, and keep smiling.
To Ponger,
Good that u are finally replying to clarify your statements. I accept your explanation.
It’s not easy to write a report on a game, much less a Final with so much at stake and knowing that whatever u write, arrows gonna come your way!
Even as a spectator, with the score at 18-8 with 15 min to go, that last 15 min seemed like eternity to the ACS supporters and short like hell for the saints….pardon my pun! Anyway, it was a good Final!
Cheers!
to ponger
well,..i know about SA village as I was from an Anglican Church. SA is Anglican.
ACJC get a small percentage from ACS(BR)…if you look at the ACJC standing now,..to get in now is difficult compared to some 15 to 20years ago..almost single digit “O” Levels score to get in.
For DSA you still need to qualify for JC in your O level results.
SA and ACS(BR) has the same problem. a lot of the boys go on to the polytechnic after O levels,..so again, SAJC and ACJC face the same problems with the difficulty to build a team from diverse backgrounds within s short period of time. They stand a better chance if more of their boys go back to their JCs after O levels.
For Raffles, they never had this problem all these year in A Div, most RI will go back to RJ. If you look at past champions, RJ still has the most A Div title with 22 A Div titles.
For ACS(i), only the past couple of years with the IB program, they get to have players playing 5/6 years together in their new A Div team.
Hi,
I would just like to say that amidst all the glory and fanfare of the just concluded A Div final.It was clear that there was a healthy respect between both teams despite the rivalry .It was a well fought match and both teams including their staff and coaches shd be congratulated!
I would like to take this opportunity to ask a SAJC player or Farid himself to update me with regards to your well being.Being a coach,It is most worrying to see players getting injured be it my own or the opposing team’s.
May I commend you on being such a brave player to take it like a man and continued soldering on! However,your health should always be your priority and should never be taken for granted,so do seek medical advice shd there be a need to. Take care and hope all is well!
would appreciate if someone or Farid can comment.
Best regards
to rw:
i dont mind writing a report, but i dont really know how! haha! yeah i was at the game, but from the beginning! haha. i didnt notice how long it took for sajc to cross the line haha!
21-8 is not a close game? hmmm. ok maybe it’s considered as not. but i was looking at the overall. like if you compare to other schools and other matches. you get 81-0 that kinda stuff. 21-8 is like quite few tries/penalties/conversions right.
haha yeah it was a good finals game nonetheless. =)
to bb:
WOAH CHILL. Haha. dont kill.
if i came across as “insulting all those JCs who have feeder boys in their teams and hv been training tgt for 5-6 years”, i’m sorry, i didnt mean it that way. i didnt think it that way. haha.
i guess you’re right about rj. eh but rj imports a lot of darn good players from everywhere. it’s also a “new team” of sorts. not the same people playing together right. for sa too. some good players are attracted to schools such as rj and such.
haha! maybe you can ask “where have all the saints gone.”
if you dont mind, you can tell me more about the all blacks haha. i like watching them play, i dont know them.
“If you wanna talk abt unfair advantage, of the BIG-4, ACJC has the most unfair disadvantage. Their players come from all corners, only a handful fm the feeder schools. Instead of complaining or crying foul, they r resolute believers in their game. ”
you’re implying i’m from sajc or from their rugby team? haha. no i’m not. i dont know about acjc too. but dont they get most of their players from acsb?
your last statement IS an insult directed at me. really. haha. but its ok. just calm down yeah. i mean no harm dont get worked up haha.
to Conspiracy:
HOW would i know? i’m not from there! haha! i guess “if they could make it back to SAJC then they could train and play for 5/6 years just like ACS and Raffles. ” but i know the good rugby players get dsa-ed to other schools. they do well enough to make it to jc. and it’s good enough for the moe. cos that means they can stay in a jc.
er. i think raffles dsa-ed too many people for last year and then this year’s a level results werent good so they didnt dsa too many people this year thats why they arent doing so well in sports. maybe it’s only a rumour. but really. look at rugby-4th, girls soccer-3rd, guys soccer.-not even top 4. tada. haha.
“Anyway, i know that the acsi team always go up against bigger and older opponents like UWC to toughen themselves up. This is part and parcel of their training regime, it just goes to show how much they really wanted to win. So even though they have been playing together for years, i feel that its their effort and the time sacrificed into training that helped them more.”
thats cool. i guess this batch/year of acsi ruggers really wanted to win this year after the “finals after finals” in previous years of not, in b div. nice one acsi, gained my respect. =)
“But being an ac old boy, i say there in the acs schools and other long established instituitions, they have a tradition of players staying together in teams which indeed gives them one advantage which is team chemistry as they can read each other’s next move easily. Physical strength and speed can all be built up in the student’s years at their respective schools, but experience and chemistry is the thing which they lack.”
I agree with Anonymous, the better team won. I said IN MY OPINION sajc was the true winner but I agree that acsi is stronger.
chill people dont be so worked up over my comment, i’m not against any team in particular, i’m not against anybody haha! i’m just saying. so dont come all fired up on me. =)
True, I could have spoken to the coach.
ok les. thanks anyway for all dedication to this site.
“I remember one poor girl was in tears after losing a national final and refused to talk to me. After that I decided I’d leave them well alone.”
HAHA really uncle les! oh dear. i understand. haha. but how about the coach? maybe you could have gotten his opinions too?
to kuku:
what right have you to comment on their techniques? unless you can say that you’re a rugger. TRY playing on the field man…
those who believe in the saints spirit WILL wear the blue and white.
to be fair, i think the match was relatively close compared to other matches.
congratulations to the winners. it is not easy to make it to the finals, considering that every match, they give their best. it was an exciting match.
the debate about feeder schools – it actually gives them a slight advantage over team chemistry and fluency of game.
both the teams have fought well and kudos for their determination and strength.
judging from the backgrounds of the photos, ACSI has many AC school supporters too! Like from ACJC and the AC junior/primary schools.
Excellent photos by the way.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY, THE BEST IS YET TO BE!