The Manila Nomads bounced back to upset the Alabang Eagles in round two of the JML 10s League. After suffering an embarrassing first round defeat, the Nomads went back to the basics and a fired up team ran onto the field at Southern Plains ready to make amends for the first round lost. The Nomads went back to their forward dominated game plan and team Captain Dave Feeney led the relentless pick and drive routine that eventually led to the Nomads first try to Volcanoes player Jon Morales, who dived over from a five meters out. The Eagles struggled up front in the scrums and the larger Nomads pack constantly wheeled the Eagles to retain a glut of possession. When the Eagles backs were able to see some rare ball, they sparked into attack mode with Juan Engelbtrecht streaking down the sideline to link up with Volcanoes player Harry Morris to score the game's second try. Tim Bweheni then converted from outward and the Eagles took a 7 – 5 lead into halftime.

The second half hung in the balance until the assistant referee reported Tim Bweheni for a striking charge that resulted in a red card and this left the Eagles with 9 players.  The Nomads forwards continued to dominate possession. It was only a matter of time before Chris Anderson crossed out wide to give the Nomads a late lead by 10 – 7. The Eagles had a couple of late chances and displayed that even with a depleted side that they are lethal in attack. The Nomads were able to hang on and even the series at 1 – 1. The Cup Final will be played next Saturday March 2nd and the winner of this game will take the upper hand into Manila 10s on March 16/17th.

The Plate Division games saw the Carabaos hit form with their new Fijian contingent led by Saki Tuisolia as they easily beat the Globe Immortals by 39 – 0. The Mavericks proved they will definitely contend for the last spot in the Manila 10s tournament by defeating the Ibons by 17 – 15 in the game of the day. The Ibons squandered several chances including a conversion to even the game. National team u18s player, Ramirez Lito Cruz from the Tuloy Foundation, proved a handful for the Ibons and scored twice for the Mavericks.  These results have now set up two final games in next week’s Plate division with the Carabaos playing the Ibons to win the Plate trophy and the Vipers playing Globe to see who takes the coveted last spot in the Manila 10s team draw.

The Alabang Falcons have proven to be a handful in the Bowl division and won both their games on Saturday by defeating the Clark Rugby Club by 39 - 0 and then backed up to defeat Vipers by 67 – 0. In the other Bowl division game, the Hapons made their debut at the JML 10s and won a hard fought battle over the determined MAAP warriors by 21 – 0. The Falcons have a points majority lead over the rest of the field and the Hapons will need to defeat the Falcons by a large margin to compete for the Bowl Trophy.

The finals of the JML 10s league will be played this Saturday, March 2nd at Nomad Sports Club from 3pm – 8pm.

The JML PRFU 10s League kicked off with a bang this Saturday at Southern Plains, Eagles Nest. First up was the women’s division with a battle between the warrior princesses.  It was a tough start with both teams playing on pretty equal terms, with team Xena winning the first game by 24-20.  Team Athena put their foot down in the second game against Xena and ran away with a 22-5 victory.

The first men’s game showed that there are plenty of local talent in the youthful CRC team who defeated the Vipers 66-24. They displayed excellent ball skills and constantly created gaps in the opposition defence. The Vipers on the other hand were focused on their forwards and tried to play the game up the middle of the field, this style of play was not enough to best the fast feet and hands of the youthful CRC team.

The Globe 7s League kicked off on Saturday, August 4 at the Southern Plains Rugby Field. The new expanded tournament saw the inclusion of 15 men’s teams and 3 Women’s team with University of Makati (UMAK) and Quezon City Polytechnic University (QCPU) as the newest additions to the league.

The PRFU have been running Rugby development programs at both Universities since late 2011. After introducing Touch Rugby at the early stages of the program, the students of UMAK and QCPU graduated to playing 7s Rugby and have now stepped up into the Globe 7s League to play in the Bowl competition. Earlier this year the PRFU introduced 7s Touch Rugby at the ALCU University games and it is envisaged that the PRFU will start a University 7s League in 2013.

In wet conditions the Bowl teams started the day with the Tarsiers, UMAK, QCPU, Ibons and the Clark Rugby Club all travelling to the Southern Plains Rugby Club to start the new Globe 7 series that will run in two leagues until the end of October 2012.

The Clark Rugby Club, who were Silver Medal winners from the Philippine National Games, showed that they will again be a force to reckon with in the 7s arena and won their first two games finally losing their third game in a close battle to Bowl Favorites the Ibons. 

One of the best games of the day was played between the two University teams, with the University of Makati winning the inaugural university challenge by 17 – 10 and also claiming the Bowl Division “Hardy’s Team of the Day" award.

The Plate Division was divided into two pools of 4 teams while the Women’s teams of Xena and Nomads played three games over the afternoon. The Men’s games saw the new team from the Eagles RFC, the Falcons, make an immediate impact at this level of competition. A second team, the Flamingos, was also formed on the day composed mostly of  students from Adamson University who hail from Papua New Guinea. 

The Eagles were the strongest team on the day with the Hapons and CBRE Mavericks playing out the closest game in the Plate Division with the Mavericks eventually winning the arm wrestle 7 – 5. The Women finished the day in very wet conditions with an exhilarating 0 – 0 draw the last round of games had to postponed as the heavens opened. 

The second round of the Globe 7s League is on Saturday, August 18 at the Southern Plains Field, Silangan, Laguna. 



Full list of the Globe 7s League Round 1 results.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge. All photos by Mark Cristino

The Nomads proved again that they are the number one 15s Rugby team in the Philippines with an emphatic 30-10 win over the Alabang Eagles in the JML  15s Final last June 9. The Nomads forward pack took full control of the game from the kick off and set the scene when they went straight into the pick drive patterns and constantly challenged the Eagles to try and stop their aggressive rolling mauls. The Eagles defense was certainly more organized than the last time the two teams met and they tried to challenge their bigger Nomads counterparts at the edge of the mauls and rucks, but had little effect on the machine-like attack that Dave Feeney and his forwards displayed. The Nomads did not make a mistake in the forwards in the first half and this eventually led to Man of the Match, Chris Anderson scoring the first two tries of the game both in similar style coming from rolling mauls and strong forward play.

Nomads coach Phil “Stinger” Gittus proved once again that good old fashioned 10-man Rugby can win in 15s rugby and he had obviously drilled the Nomads forwards in the finer arts of tight play. His English upbringing and coaching style dominated the Nomads play, with the ball rarely thrown to the backline and the Nomads forwards enjoying the opportunity to play up the middle of the field.

The Eagles regrouped at halftime and turned the Nomads around at the second half with some tactical kicks from flyhalf Rupert Zappia which led to two penalties being awarded to the Eagles at 21 – 0 down. The Eagles decided to try and place some much needed points on the board. Unfortunately young Tim Smith who had kicked 10 penalties against the Cebu Dragons last week missed both attempts and the Eagles were left empty handed. Some pundits thought they should have taken the game to the Nomads and gone for the tries instead of the Penalty shots

It wasn’t until late in the second half that the Eagles crossed the Nomads line with a try which they were able to convert ; but this was all too late as the Nomads scored two more tries to take out the JML 15s Championship by 30 -10.

Chris Anderson from Nomads was named Man of the Match and Chris Hettel won the JML Award which was donated and presented by Steve Payne from JML.

Maverick Vipers Win the Bowl Final to claim top spot at Rugby 101

The Maverick Vipers were totally focused on winning their debut final in the JML 15s Bowl Division and came out firing on all cylinders as they scored in the first minute of the game through some sharp work from their two underage International players, Dan O’Reilly and AJ Brown, who combined in the backline to set up several attacking raids into the Bison Tarsiers territory. The Bison Tarsiers struggled to gain possession and the Maverick Vipers seemed to run at will, led by their Captain, Ulysses Veloso the MV’s were relentless in attack and scored a comprehensive six try to one victory.

The Bison Tarsiers scored a late try in the game to spoil the Maverick Vipers hope taking out the final without allowing their opponents to score against them, but this was too little too late with the Maverick Vipers dominating all aspects play and running out the Bowl champions winners by 45 – 7.

Carabaos Defeat Hapons in Plate Final

The Carabaos took out the Plate Final defeating the Manila Hapons by 49 – 17. The Carabaos were at full strength and took advantage of their strong bench, whilst the Hapons had to call on some players to help fill the ranks before kick off. Te Hapons upset their more fancied rivals when they scored a length of the field try, which started from behind their own line and ended with Keiichi Utaka scoring after the ball went through several sets of hands.

The Carabaos realized that the Hapons were going to play running rugby and closed things down with some aggressive forward play that led to the next two tries. The Hapons hit back and scored again before halftime and the game remained close leading into the break at 21 – 17.

It was all one way traffic during the second half and the Carabaos started to rotate their bench whilst the Hapons were starting to tire which allowed the Carabaos to score four tries second half tries and win the Plate final by 49 – 17.

Cup MVP – Chris Anderson
JML Cup Award – Chris Hettel

Plate MVP – Romani Peyrelouse
JML Plate Award – Fred Marcerou

Bowl MVP – Mark Bulacan
JML Award – AJ Brown

The next round of games will be played at the Philippine National Games at the RECS stadium in Sta Cruz Laguna on Saturday June 23rd. This will be an all day event with Gold, Silver and Bronze medals being presented by the PSC to the winning teams.

The Alabang Eagles travelled to Cebu this past weekend to support the Women’s International match and play their Cup round against the Cebu Dragons. The Eagles who were coming off a loss to Nomads, had to defeat the Dragons in order to cement a place in the JML 15s League finals.

The Cebu Dragons had a positive start to the game and pressured the Eagles from the kick off, this resulted in the Eagles giving away a simple penalty in front of the posts and Jerry Branzuela stepped to slot the Dragons first points. Unfortunately this would be the last points the Dragons would score until late in

the game as the Alabang Eagles took full control of the game and piled on 90 unanswered points to send a strong signal to the Nomads that the Eagles are ready for the JML 15s Finals. The speedy Eagles backline were in dominant form as they piled on 14 tries and seemed to run at will with Captain Tim Bweheni consistently making inroads into the Dragons defence. Young gun Tim Smith who played for the Philippine National u16s last year converted 13 shots to rake up 26 solo points and is a bright star for future National underage teams.

Under coach and player Dan Moutin, the Eagles forwards played with more discipline and Veve Apolosa was hard to stop as he charged into the Dragons forwards and also made several blockbusting tackles to create turnovers. 

The Dragons tried to combat the Eagles onslaught but were unable to keep possession for more than three phases and struggled in the set pieces as the Eagles larger forwards applied constant pressure at every scrum and lineout.

Dragons Captains Noel Flowers and Jerry Branzuela kept rallying the Dragons players to fight until the end and newcomer backs Dean Bates and Tony Tualo from New Zealand showed signs that the Dragons can rebuild from this loss in their first outing in Cebu. The Dragons Captains frustration boiled over and both players were out on their feet by the end of the game.

The Final score was Eagles 90 Cebu Dragons 8 and the Eagles will now meet the Manila Nomads in the JML 15s Cup Finals to be played at the Eagles new home field in Silangan next Saturday June 9th. The finals will feature the three Men’s divisions, Cup, Plate and Bowl.  The Women’s Division will rest as they prepare to play in the Asian Women’s Division 2 Championships against Laos, Singapore and Thailand in Manila on June 14 and 16th.