Club captain gets warned for unruly behaviour

The centre of discussion on Derek's facebook page

SMURugby has issued a statement indicating its disapproval of club captain, Derek Chan's less-than-satisfactory behaviour. The National-7s player was caught discussing sexual positions (specifically 'Angry Pirate') on popular social networking site - facebook, and has since been the centre of unwanted public attention.

Coach Hairul said, "I understand when the boys want to have some fun, but this behaviour is far from acceptable, especially for the captain of my squad. There are many roles to the captain and being a role model was one of them. I expected more from Derek (Chan)."

Derek's unruly ways comes on the back of being named as captain of the IRAUG Squad and while Derek has been outstanding on the field, he has been known for his wild party ways which have occasionally got him into trouble. Derek has since apologized to the squad for his unruly behaviour.

Derek becomes the first captain since DMC to be warned for improper conduct off the field.

IRAUG Squad announced

This morning, SMU Rugby's newly appointed head coach, Hairul, announced the squad for the Indian-Rim Asian University Games 2009. The club congratulates all players selected.

IRAUG squad to be announced soon

Still recovering from the disappointing performance by the SMU team last month, the team has ever seen regathered and have been working hard to get back to shape. Finishing 3rd in the SUNIG 7s was clearly unacceptable to the club's standards and President and Captain Derek Chan has vowed to make amends and hopes to successfully defend the 15s title.

However, the club's primary focus for now is to concentrate on a good preparation for the upcoming 7s tournament in Perth this December. The club will be sending a total of about 12 players to compete in the tournament and will hopefully do one better than the previous team that represented SMU 2 years ago, who finished 4th.

the team that represented SMU in 2007 in Perth.
Out of the 12 in the squad, 9 of the players have either left the club or will not be available for selection this year, leaving 3 players from the squad of 2007 who might be making their second appearance in the IRAUG.

The team is currently being coached by newly signed , Hairul Naim, who has said to be pushing the boys through the paces and picking up where former SMU coach Rong left off. The team of 12 that will be representing SMU in Perth will be announced in the coming weeks.

Ben Wai gets slapped with club fine

Over a month ago Benjamin Wai pledged his life to SMUrugby blog, however, ever since then the former ACJC sprinter has only accounted for 2 posts on the blog and is suspected to be just a "flash in the pan". His lack of posts on the blog has led to the Board of Directors (of the blog and club) calling for a vote of confidence and has caused huge uproar and displeasure among the fans and refreshers of SMUrugby.

The winger, who had his first competitive outing for the City Boys in the SUniG 7s this year has been under intense scrutiny of his performance on the field and on the blog. "He has a lot of potential, but some thing has happened to Ben and he has fallen by the wayside, we need to sort this out and make sure his mind and body is one with SMUrugby!" said one of the directors who declined to be named.

Ben Wai has been slapped with a club fine for a lack of commitment to the blog, however, no one really knows what the penalty is. When asked about the nature of the fine, the disciplinary committee could only reveal, "Ben will have to beware of himself as we take this very seriously."

Ben Wai will not be allowed to appeal against the fine and will be strongly advised to start posting.

Wai, could not be contacted for comment during the time of press release.

NUS wins SuNIG 7s

Last week in the inaugural SUNIG 7s, the City Boys were in for a shocking 3rd finish, as they crashed out in disastrous fashion. The signs could not be any clearer when the SMU A side lost to NUS B in the group stages, 17-22.

This year, NUS was definitely out for blood and was looking for nothing but sweet revenge after suffering a narrow defeat in last year's SUNIG 7s finals to the City Boys. And in the end, when the two A teams met in the semi finals, it was like a deja vu of what happened in 2007 when the two teams met in the SMU ringEmail 7s semi-finals. SMU were off to a confident and flying start scoring two tries in the first half and leading by a score of 10-0 against NUS, which have lately been coined to be known as the Clementi Pretenders. However, NUS had other ideas and staged an impressive comeback and sealed their place in the finals by establishing yet another successful come back (but this time with no controversies, like we had 2 years ago), winning by a score of 12-10 and denying SMU any hopes of defending their 7s title.

The Clementi Pretenders went on to meet the exciting and impressive underdogs, NTU. And the finals turned out to be yet another comeback story, with NUS having to dig deep and come back from behind to win the tournament 26-14.

The tournament has shown how closely matched the 3 universities are, and probably there might be a slight hint that this season might see the "fall" of the Golden Era for SMU. The team has been in nothing but a shell-shock state and will be looking to pick up the pieces. This tournament paints a very interesting story for next year when the teams meet for the 3rd Tri-Univerisities 15 a side Rugby Championships.

Meanwhile, the SMU team has wasted no time to mourn and has been reported to be back in the training camp and looking forward to sort out the problems within the team and prepare themselves for the next challenge, the India Rim Australia University Games in Australia this December.

Come on down to support us

"Cause if you ain't first, you're last."

Ricky Bobby

SUNIG 7s preview

Tomorrow is marked as the biggest rugby tournament for all Universities this term, the Singapore Universities Games Rugby 7s will be held over the weekend for the second time in history. After being omitted from the previously established IVP games, which included polytechnics, the Singapore Universities Sports Council decided to hold their own competition, hence the birth of SUNIG few years ago.

During this weekend, we will see if defending champions SMU will be able to silence the critics and successfully defend their title like they have with the Tri Uni 15s tournament. They will be looking to complete the much prestigious double (7s & 15s title) to cement their place as the top university rugby team in Singapore again this year. The team has undergone many changes since the last tournament and has been constantly reminded that the loss of the former batch of senior players will be difficult to replace and emulate. In fact, this will be SMU's first official tournament without the players from the graduated 'Class of 09s'. While the pressure is on the new team, the team promises to deliver as Captain Derek Chan is upbeat about his chances of defending the 7s crown.

SMU will be looking to show off some of their new talents, with the likes of freshman speedster Daniel Kong, who will be looking to provide some prolific finishing and Benjamin Wai who has began to stake a serious claim for a first team place in the City boys. The team on paper looks impressive, with each player recording an average of 12.00 seconds for the 100m. (bearing in mind an outlier result of prop Sherman Yeo, who completes the century in about 30 seconds). The team is said to be made out of a list of speedsters and will certainly look to "gas & smash" their way through to the finals.

NUS on the other hand will be led out by Captain Firas, who will love to share the spoils and provide an upset for the defending champions. The NUS side will be looking rather "foreign", with almost 3-4 international exchange students making a first team appearance. They are speculated to be from either France, Canada, South Africa, NZ, Fiji, South Africa..... (YOU NAME IT THEY HAVE IT. well honestly, we are not too sure where they are from, but in any case, there are about 4 of them). In terms of the locals for the side, the team will feature a host of former Anglo Chinese School boys, like Shafiq Zulazmi, Justin Koh, Leow Wei Xiong and Loh Wei Liang. Another player who will also be featured in the side is Singapore Idol wannabe Ian Choo, who promises to sing some tunes during the tournament interval break.

Next, we have the Boon Lay Warriors, who once again are often an unknown force, only because they are located in the most obscure location in Singapore. However, not to be underestimated, the sides is going to be led out by Sidney Kumar who has recently burst into the National rugby scene in Singapore. He will be accompanied by the likes of talented rockstar-looking, Xue Ren Han, "SMU-snubber" Joel Leong and "Fake Ang moh" Peter Walker. The Warriors, will certainly be a team to watch out for.

Finally, we have SIM. The team will be captained by National player, Jon Lee. The team is mostly unknown to me! Except for Eugene Rong and former AC scrumhalf-who-now-looks-more-like-a-prop, Sugyanto who are listed to be representing SIM. It will be interesting to see what SIM can pull off, as I am sure they will like to improve their performance from the last SUNIG.

Well thats our wrap on the upcoming SUNIG, we hope you guys get down to catch the action...and to see who will be crown this year's SUNIG champions!