Good show by Arabian Gulf

The Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union recently participated in the 18th Asian Rugby Championships in Thailand. This was the Gulf's first Asian Championships after joining the Asian Rugby Football Union two years ago.

Arriving in Bangkok on November 15, it was a tough ask to play 12 hours after arrival against Malaysia. In hot and humid conditions both teams struggled to get going, but AGRFU won the match (30 -13).

There were tries from Marcus Smith, Mark Gathercole (2), Andrew Mexsom and Nigel Palmer. Gathercole, with his two tries and solid performance, won himself the man of the match award.

The AGRFU's next game was against Singapore. This was the first time that the Gulf had played Singapore in the 15-a-side game. It was a very closely contested first half with the AGRFU conceding an early try through an intercept but the Gulf Team went into the break 9 -7 up.

After the break, the Gulf team ran in three tries, first with Marcus Smith and then, Man of the Match, Luke Phillips and Nicolas De Marco rounding off a fantastic second half performance.

The two victories then put the AGRFU in the final against hosts Thailand. It was always going to be a difficult game with the Gulf team. With only 18 players the Gulf team took on Thailand and started brilliantly with a well worked try in the first two minutes by Eddy Van Dyk and went in at halftime 5 -3 ahead.

After the break, a defensive lapse saw the Thais score in the corner and then they capitalised on another error to score and lead 17-5.

The Gulf team came back and scored through Andrew Mexsom to narrow the margin to 17 -12. On the final whistle the Thai team kicked a drop kick to seal victory in a very exciting encounter.