Dubai: Hurricanes made a perfect start to their Arabian Gulf Cup campaign with two solid group victories on the opening weekend of the new season.
The club's first team cruised to an easy 62-3 home victory over Muscat, running in a total of 10 tries despite failing to find any real fluency and continuity.
But the result that had coach Steve Holohan purring was Hurricanes seconds' 24-3 defeat the previous evening of third seeds Dubai Dragons IIs.
He said: "A lot of those boys had never played together before but the forwards played out of their skins, we scored four tries and our defence was outstanding."
Holohan described the first team's performance against Muscat as "very rusty" yet a weakened Muscat outfit were still dispatched with ease as winger Gerry Considine led the charge with a hat-trick of tries.
Skipper Chris Gregory, a blurr of perpetual motion who started the game at hooker and finished in the back row in between popping up at scrum-half, crossed twice with Graham Brown, Dave Gale, Alan Bond, Josh Sherrin and Dave Clouson also touching down with Clouson slotting six conversions. Injury concerns took some of the gloss off the win though with Ben Twomey (knee), Brian Rennison (ankle) and Graham Brown (rib) all being forced off.
Four tries
Cup holders Dubai Dragons, meanwhile, overcame Sharjah Wanderers 60-3 at the Exiles with centre Craig Jones claiming four tries.
The Wanderers, brave and committed throughout, put more into the game than the scoreline suggests but the Dragons held all the aces going forward as full-back Emmet Condron grabbed a hat-trick with new fly-half John Black and Gulf international Sean Hurley rounding off the scoring.
Holohan described the first team's performance against Muscat as "very rusty" yet a weakened Muscat outfit were still dispatched with ease as winger Gerry Considine led the charge with a hat-trick of tries.
