The City Boys came short of SUNIG 7s glory after losing 12-5 to a more agile and quicker NUS side in the Cup Semi-Finals. It was made known to all teams prior to the tournament that ground conditions were horrible and sources from the sideline say that the NUS team tried to replicate this at practice on Thursday. Their attempt was futile however as one of their players forgot to turn the water hose off resulting in the flooding of the AYE and the Science Faculty looking slightly like Atlantis.
SMU B kicked off the first game of the day against a spirited SIM side led by the versatile Bryan Lim still feeling fresh from his Quad-Uni Games triumph in the 3rd/4th way back in March. Constant pressure from both sides kept the scores deadlocked for the better part of the game till SIM capitalized on SMU B's mistakes and managed to sneak a victory towards the end. Stand out performances from Zul, Wei Arng and Isa dominating the break down and securing good ball to unleash the SMU B backline.
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SMU A then faced NTU A in the first game of the other group. SMU A kept the ball in hand and played to the patterns but unfortunate handling errors and quick reactions from the NTU A boys resulted in them emerging victorious.The loss didnt bring the spirits of the City Boys down though, they faced NUS B in the next game of their group. The City Boys leadership core of Jesse Quek, Ronald Cher and Timothy Gay gathered the boys together and came out convincing victors against an NUS B through the hard running of Shaun 'Shaubieee" Ng.
SMU B opted to play a more relaxed and free flow style of rugby throughout the rest of the day which managed to get them a place in the Plate Finals against SIM. 6 out of the 7 in the SMU B team were forwards. Chaw Wei Arng found himself right at home(or on Pluto) at in-center and pacified the threat of the dangerous hard running Jonah Wee of SIM. The ex ACJC teammates had skirmishes all match long and the hits just kept coming from Wei Arng.
Stuart Ho had this to say about Wei Arng's performance, ''He is not a man. He is a Uruk-Hai''.
Incase you guys weren't sure what an Uruk-Hai is..
SMU A then faced NUS A in the Cup Semi-Finals. The starting line up of Shaun Ng, Timothy Gay, Ronald Cher, Wong Kai Wei, Duarte Marquez, Jesse Quek & Brandon Yow were doing well till a fumble toward the end of the first half saw Martin Butler of NUS make the best out of a 2 v 1 situation and score.
7-0 at the half time break.
SMU A made some tactical substitutions in the form of Harresh Krishnan and Ian Gan. NUS A got their second try of the game and led 12-0 with about 3 minutes to go. Harresh then made the most of a line out option gone wrong and crossed over the try line after picking the ball from mid air. The try was too little too late as the ref blew the final whistle shortly after that. Heartbreak once again for the City Boys but fresh faces and improved camaradarie within the squad makes things look very positive in the next few months to come.
The Cup Final, which was contested between NUS A and NTU A was not short of excitement. Finals are either low or high scoring affairs and yesterdays SUNIG 2013 was the latter. NTU opened the gates first with a breakaway from Daniel Lum. NUS then replied with some brilliant interplay between their backs. This trend then followed till the last 2 minutes of the game which had NTU A leading NUS A 19-17.
Out of no where, the speedy Titi Teo, who is also a superstar frisbee player collected an offload from NUS center Daniel Looi. Titi Teo took off 5m away from the try line and scored under the posts in the most dramatic fashion. NUS sealed their victory against NTU 24-19 making them 5 time SUNIG 7s champions.
Titi Teo in mid flight
Titi Teo did not display much emotion after winning the SUNIG 7s 2013. He just wanted to have a nap.
Keith Arriola of NUS had this to say about his teams efforts on the day,
" I just want to mention that the team really dug deep in the final, every single time NTU scored we bounced back with something of our owni instead of putting our heads down when it came to crunch time when we really needed that try, we did well to put if off when our resident frisbee player achieved flight and flew over the tryline. I think he even managed to sneak a cheeky smile in! The job was not done as we still had to hold on for the last 2 minutes. The team did really well to hold on and see the game out. It was a tough ask for them to play that kind of final given we played one more game in the morning as compared to NTU.''
Congrats to NUS and all the other teams for a great display of rugby yesterday. National Selectors were on site and were impressed. Many positive comments were made and we hope to see as many Uni boys featuring in the National Under 23 squad that faces Malaysia U23s in December.
With SUNIG 7s now concluded, the next big tournament among the 4 Universities would be the Quad-Uni 15s, probably sometime in the next semester. The City Boys boast a bigger and more dynamic pack from last year and have some new backs amongst their ranks. Could the Quad-Uni 15s finally see the City Boys achieve glory? Stay tuned for more! In the mean time, enjoy this fresh beat brought to you by SMU Rugby's very own, DJ Duarte Marquez.
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