Story by Koh Yizhe and Ng Enna/Red Sports. Photos by Vanessa Lim/Red Sports

B division rugby

A Raffles Institution player catches the line out over the outstretched arm of his ACS (BR) opponent. (Photo 1 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

Republic Polytechnic, Saturday, February 26, 2011 — It took a try in the closing minutes for Raffles Institution (RI) to scrape a 13-13 draw against Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) in the B Division Rugby Championship.

Chong Chung Chi (RI #24) sprinted down the left flank and broke away from the ACS (BR) defense with a couple of minutes left on the clock to score a try and his teammate Maverick Lim easily made the conversion.

More drama followed in the final minute when Maverick missed an easy penalty and a chance to win it for RI with the last kick of the game.

“Seriously, we deserve to lose,” said RI coach Faizal Ahyar. “We were lucky to have drawn the match. The performance was way below expectations. Way, way, way, way, way below expectations because we beat this team by eight tries about four weeks ago. I guess the boys were a bit cocky, a bit arrogant and expected to just show up and win.”

“They are just not in the game today and their minds are elsewhere. Maybe it’s a Saturday, they had to watch Nickelodeon,” he added.

RI had the better start, scoring the first points of the match through a penalty by Maverick in the 19th minute. However, ACS(BR) responded strongly, pushing RI back to their try-line through a confident run by Darryl Chua (#13). In that same attack, Maurice Lim (ACS (BR) #5) managed to power his way through RI’s defense to give his team a 5-3 lead. Ahmad missed the opportunity to give his team two extra points with his missed conversion attempt.

The rest of the first half had little action as both teams cancelled each other out. The game picked up in the second period though with RI gaining the upper hand when Maurice Lim (ACS (BR), #5) was yellow carded. As a result, RI were able to take a slim 6-5 lead through a Maverick Lim penalty.

Just like when they fell behind in the first half, ACS (BR) responded immediately. From the restart, RI lost focus and ACS (BR)’s Lu Chuanyi (#31) punished them with a try. With a 10-6 lead, Ahmad failed to put his team further ahead, missing his conversion once again.

This would eventually prove costly, but ACS (BR) looked to be cruising to victory when Ahmad made it a seven-point lead at 13-6 with a penalty towards the end of the game.

However, RI were able to steal a point with Chong Chung Chi’s (RI #24) late try and Maverick’s conversion. RI were unfortunate not to win the game with Maverick’s missed penalty at the death.

“It was a tough match,” said ACS (BR) captain Wesley Foong. “Towards the end of the match, fatigue set in and we were lazy so we conceded the try. We could have done better in our defense with our forwards. We have to stack up more in coming matches if we want to win them.”

B division rugby

Maverick Lim (RI #12) getting ready for a penalty kick. Not his team’s regular kicker, he nevertheless managed to put three out of four attempts between the posts, but missed a crucial last-minute penalty that could have won the game for his side. (Photo 2 © Vanessa Lim/Red Sports)

Go to next page for rest of the story and more photos