The GLOBE PRFU 7s finals were held at the Nomads sports club last Saturday and nine men’s teams arrived to battle for the Cup and Plate Trophies. In the Cup Division we saw the Alabang Eagles and Ibons, Manila Hapons, MAAP Warriors and Manila Nomads while the Plate division saw the introduction of the new “All Filipino league” with the Globe Immortals, Raging Bison, Vipers and Tarsiers all entering teams in the their first PRFU league finals campaign. Tim Bweheni CUP DIVISION The day began with a round-robin play off in each division. All games were going according to plan until the Alabang Ibons met the Nomads in the Cup Semi-Final. The Ibons had obviously been practicing the 7s game and came out firing against their larger Nomads opponents. The game was fiercely competitive with Jon Morales and Saki Tuisolia forcing the Ibons to make several strong tackles. It was 7 – 7 with two minutes remaining on the clock, before Chris Everingham broke through the Nomads defense and linked up with David Carman to score the try of the day that lead the Ibons to a final against their club A team, the Eagles. The cup final was then played between the Alabang Eagles and the Alabang Ibons and it was the club’s premier team who proved too strong for the Ibons. With National Team players like Tim Bweheni, Andrew Wolff and Eric Tai the Eagles ran out easy winners by 28-7. Tim Bweheni was named the Cup Division “Most Valuable Player” as he again displayed that he possesses some natural talent in the game of Rugby 7s. PLATE DIVISION The Plate Division was a battle royal with the four new Filipino clubs playing and training at PhilSports Stadium for the last 2 months to prepare for the Plate Finals. The Tarsiers played the Vipers for third and forth positions and after two games the Tarsiers won the third place on for- and-against tally of 22 points for 10 points against. This left the Globe Immortals to play the Plate Final against their fierce opponents, the Bison in a match which proved to be closest game of all the finals. The Raging Bison The Globe Immortals were led by Wilson Caisip who has been one of the strongmen of the newly formed club and he rallied the Globe team to take the game to the Bisons. The Bison certainly did not lie down and stunned the more fancied Globe team with some bone crushing tackles as the score remained 0 – 0 for the first five minutes. It was National Development team representative player, Jay Coronel who finally broke the dead lock and busted through the Bison’s defense to score a great individual try, the only one scored in the first half. Jay Coronel The second half proved just as tight as the first, until the last minute of the game when the Bison decided to attack from their own 10 meter line. A gap opened, and the Bison scored a 90 meter try to get back in the game. They only needed to convert the kick to draw the match and take it into overtime, unfortunately they missed the conversion and the final siren rang with the Globe Immortals scrapping home to win the inaugural Globe PRFU 7s Plate final by 7 – 5. Jay Coronel was named the Plate Division “Most Valuable Player” The PRFU intend on running three elite leagues in 2012 that include: PRFU 10s League (Jan, Feb, March) PRFU 15s League (April, May, June) PRFU 7s League Rd 1 (August, Sept) PRFU 7s League Rd 2 (Oct, Nov) Congratulations to all the teams that played in the PRFU leagues in 2011 and we all look forward to a competitive season in 2012. The Nomads Rugby club once again proved that they are the local champions at 15s Rugby in the with a hard fought win over their cross town rivals the Alabang Eagles by 36 – 19. The game started with a torrential downpour that did not let up throughout the afternoon and the Nomads Rugby pitch turned into a mud bath as both teams scrambled to win the slippery ball. During the first period of the game, Nomads played in the Eagles territory which resulted in David Feeney and Pierre Fallourd scoring the first two tries for Nomads to take a 12 – 0 lead. The Alabang Eagles finally realized that they could not win the game from their own quarter and punched the ball downfield to capitalize on a Nomads mistake and Rimex Davai beat two defenders in the slippery conditions to score the opening try for the Eagles. The Eagles attacked again immediately from the kick off and Tim Bweheni scored to give the Eagles the lead 12 – 10. Nomads then kicked the ball deep and the Eagles once again tried to run from their own quarter only to knock the ball on and give Nomads possession again, which resulted in a Kevin Ogley try out wide that left the halftime score at 17 – 12 to Nomads. As the rain came down it was obvious that whichever team played the territorial advantage, would benefit in the second half. Nomads dominated the second half and scored three unanswered tries with Nomads Captain Jon Morales crossing first, to be followed by Kevin Ogley and finally Nick Treweeke. Danny Williams had a successful day with the boot in the wet conditions and converted three tries to take out the PRFU 15s league trophy.
The game was played in a competitive and fair spirit and the Alabang Eagles fought hard and without their injured star players David Carman, Chris Hettel, Andrew Wolff and Eric Tai it was always going to be difficult to win against a full strength Nomads outfit. The PRFU 15s Division 1 “Most Valuable Player” was awarded to Nomads newcomer Kevin Ogley. ALABANG IBONS TAKE OUT THE PRFU 15s DIVISION 2 TITLE Meanwhile, it was hard to decipher the teams in the Division 2 PRFU 15s Final with the field becoming a sea of mud and rain. The Alabang Ibons had remained undefeated coming into the Div 2 final and once again proved too strong for the Globe Immortals, winning the final by 34 – 5. This was the Globe immortals first years at playing 15s style Rugby and they will make improvements for next year’s competition. The Ibons were led by Philippine National u20s brothers Jovic and Jeepy Paypon who both played and scored tries in the backs, while PRFU local legend Gabby Roque and up and coming u18s National player Ross “Barnaby” McLeod led the forwards up the middle of the field. The PRFU Division 2 “Most Valuable Player” was awarded to Ross McLeod. The PRFU will now host the HK u21s team to play a two game series against the Philippine National Development team here on Aug 17th and 20th. The National Development team is selected from locally based Filipino players who have learnt and played their Rugby here in the Philippines. |
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