| Photo by Les Tan/Red Sports |
In the second game which is again drew more supporters to the Upper Serangoon venue the national teams took to the field to battle at Under 16 level, the game proved to be a lot tighter than the first fixture with no score in the first half and after an off the ball incident which resulted in a sin binning for the Hong Kong team along with three missed Hong Kong penalties and Singapore not being able to capitalise on the advantage the teams ended the half at stalemate.
The second half again was closely fought with this time Singapore being on the wrong side of the referee with David Daniel being sin binned for 10 mins. From this Hong Kong were allowed to attack more freely however the Singaporean defence held firm with Captain Harvey Aldrin leading from the front in the tight five and Samuel Teo and Charlie Hyde leading the midfield defence.
Singapore were then awarded a kickable penalty of which Naresh Kunasegaran slotted the 3 points to send the national Singapore team into the lead, ten minutes later after more sustained pressure Singapore were again awarded another penalty with Naresh again stepping up to score a further 3 points making the score 6-0 with fifteen minutes of the game left to play.
In a nervous last quarter the defence held firm from both sides, and with a fresh flow of players coming on and off the field from both teams neither team could add any further scores, IRB referee Azhar blew for full time and sent the Singaporean team and supporters into both relief and happiness.
Head Coach Harry Orgee commented
“There is a saying in rugby that teams to win games must have a strong offence but a stronger defence and that was certainly evident this evening from the players. This is a special group of players with the amount spirit and respect that they show for each other. We didn’t have a huge amount of time together so we weren’t able to put huge amount of structure into the way we wanted to play but I felt in the end this certainly played to our advantage. From a coaching point of view things are made a lot easier with strong leaders within the group, captain Harvey Aldrin has led right from the front as has Sebastian Seow controlling the back line attack and defence. But special mention must go to Naresh for his cool calm collected nature for converting the two penalties whilst under immense pressure.
I would like to just finally thank Centaurs Rugby, Tanglin Rugby Club, and St Andrews School for their support with facilities and pitches.”
Singapore National U16 Squad
Harvey Aldrin (Captain) – ACS Independent
David Daniel – St Andrews Secondary School
Nigel Ian Rankin – St Andrews Secondary School
Geoffrey Lee – ACS Independent
Kelvin Yau – St Andrews Secondary School
Norman Ng – ACS Independent
Samuel Koh – St Andrews Secondary School
Lo Eu Wen – ACS Independent
Barry Ann Jie Xun – ACS Independent
Tay Wei Shane – St Andrews Secondary School
Gurveer Singh – St Andrews Secondary School
Muhammad Syafiq – St Andrews Secondary School
Adriel Toh – St Andrews Secondary School
Sebastian Seow – ACS Independent
Charlie Hyde – Tanglin Trust School/Centaurs
Alex Lombardi – Lycee Francais School/ Centaurs
Naresh Kunasegaran – St Andrews Secondary School
Samuel Becker – ACS Independent
Sean Chang – St Andrews Secondary School
Rauf Raihan – Greenridge Secondary School
Abdul Rauf – St Andrews Secondary School
Panuvich Panpattanasil – ACS Independent
Dominic Ting – ACS Independent
Hilman Iskandar Wong – ACS Independent
Umar Muhd Noor – St Joseph’s Institution
Samuel Teo – ACS Independent
