B Division Rugby: Junyuan and Greenridge give good account of themselves despite opening day losses

By REDintern Stefanus Ian. Photos by Les Tan/Red Sports

CCAB, Thursday, February 10, 2011 — There were opening day defeats for both Junyuan and Greenridge Secondary on the opening day of the B Division Rugby Championship but not before they showed they were there not just to make up the numbers.

Junyuan scored the first three points of the new season against Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) when Md Aiman made everyone sit up and notice when he converted a penalty to give Junyuan an early 3-0 lead. Junyuan, last year’s plate champions, took the game to the defending cup champions for the first 10 minutes but the defending champions eventually ran out 74-3 winners through 13 unanswered tries.

Eight ACS(I) players — Barry Aun Jie, Harvey Aldrin, Harvey Mercado, Dominic Ting, Md Anees, Oliver Damas, Samuel Teo — got on the scoresheet with captain Samuel Teo accounting for four.

In the second game of the day, Greenridge lost 36–7 to St. Andrew’s Secondary but there were many positives for the boys in white and black. Last year, they lost 65–9 against the Saints.

Like Junyuan, Greenridge also took the game by the scruff of the neck from the get-go, scoring a try in the first half through Shamil Ridhuan and with a conversion they were up by seven points early on. Alas, the upset was not to be as the Saints, last year’s losing finalists, replied with six tries of their own.

The Saints had four players on the score sheets — Maurice Wong, Wilson Chan and Malcolm Samuel all scored a try each with Abdul Rauf having a great start to the season with three. The Saints converted half of their kicks.

This year’s B Division Rugby Championship has a new competition format which has got players, coaches and supporters buzzing. The top eight schools from last year are grouped together and will play each other once. The top four qualify for the semi-finals. Apart from ACS(I), Saints, Greenridge, Junyuan, Group A also consists of Raffles Institution, ACS(Barker Rd), St. Joseph’s Institution and Pioneer Secondary.

In addition, nine schools — Damai, Peirce, Evergreen, Regent, Jurong, Unity, Admiralty, Montfort, ACS (International) — will play in the plate competition. The nine are divided into two groups and the top two of each group will qualify for the quarter-finals where they will come up against the bottom four of Group A.

The plate schools that finish out of the quarter-final spots will get further games against each other in the Bowl competition.

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