Monday, December 22, 2008

Singapore Combined Unis win Silver & Bronze


The Singapore Combined Universities Rugby 7s Squad finally arrived back in Singapore last Saturday, after enduring an 8 hour long train ride from KL.

The team who went up to KL to compete in the 3 day long tournament did well to secure a silver medal in the league competition and a bronze medal in the cup competition.

In the league competition, the Singapore side beat Laos (22-0) and Thailand (12-7), and only losing out to Malaysia (0-17), which denied them the gold.

In the cup competition, Singapore faced Thailand in the semi-finals and had to swallow a disappointing defeat of 7-14. After the defeat to the Thais, the squad showed character and blew Laos away with 39-0 scoreline, pleasing the crowd with 7 clinical tries.

The team will like to thank all the well wishes from all who supported us in one way or the other. We will also like to thank our sponsors, 6 Drunk Men and BQ bar, who played a huge part of making this tournament a success for us.

In many ways this tournament has shown that there is much talent and potential in Singapore rugby, especially among our local boys and that Singapore is no pushover in our Asean region.

Results of League Matches
Singapore v Laos (22-0)
Tries by: Lionel Poh, Daniel Thiam, Mohd Raihan (2)
Singapore v Malaysia (0-17)
Singapore v Thailand (12-7)
Tries by: Mohd Raihan and Daniel Thiam

Results of Cup Matches
Singapore v Thailand (7-14)
Try by: Amos Siow
Singapore v Laos (39-0)
Tries by: Alex Chew, Alex Ong, Daniel Marc(3), Derek Chan and Xu Renhan

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Singapore Combined Universities set to leave on the 14th Dec


After 3 months of intensive training, the Singapore Combined Universities Rugby 7s squad is set to depart for KL this Sunday at 8.30am. The team coached under Lincoln Tan and Singapore's most capped rugby player, Rong JingXiang, will be set to face off with ASEAN's very best rugby university students.

Teams to look out for will be host nation, Malaysia and rugby 7s power house, Thailand. Both teams have been rumored to have a couple of National players who participated in the Rugby World Cup Qualifiers 7s (held in HongKong) a few months back. However, not to be out-done, the Singapore team will also feature a couple of National players of their own with Captain Daniel Marc Chow and Vice-Captain Derek Chan leading the team.

Former National 7s player, Justin Lum will also be making his first competitive appearance since his major knee surgery (in Dec 2007), replacing the injured Muhd A'srie, who coincidentally was forced out of the squad after sustaining an identical injury - torn ACL.

On paper, this Singapore side is looking impressive, with many of the boys having represented the state either at age-group level or at test level. The team is certainly filled with plenty of talent and potential....(and local blood TOO!) but the important thing is how far can the boys go in this tournament? and whether they can compete with the very best in ASEAN.
Only time will tell...

We wish the Singapore Combined Universities Squad the very best of luck.