Rugby: PH Volcanoes look to avoid relegation against UAE
A nightmare season can still have a happy ending for the Philippine Volcanoes this Saturday night.
The Philippines takes on the United Arab Emirates in the final match of the 2013 HSBC Asian 5 Nations at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium. Both teams have lost all three round-robin games going into the match up.
The Philippines were overran 121-0 by Japan in their first outing, then hung with Hong Kong for a half before falling 59-20.
Last week the Philippines (ranked 56th in the world) traveled to Ansan in Korea and were mauled by Korea Republic 62-19.
UAE (ranked 96th) suffered a 53-7 hiding to start their season, lost at home to the Koreans 75-10 then fell to Japan 93-3. That loss gave Japan its sixth consecutive top-flight title.
The “wooden spoon” recipient, or last-place finisher in A5N, Asia's top tier, is relegated to the A5N Division One, the second tier. Either UAE or the Philippines will be replaced in the top flight by Sri Lanka, who won Division One this year.
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The Philippines needs to stay in the top flight next year to have any chance of qualifying for the 2015 IRB Rugby Union World Cup to be held in England. The 2014 A5N champs, most likely Japan, gain direct access to the final stage of the World Cup while the second placer enters a four-team “repechage” single-elimination knockout tournament that will produce one more team for the final stage.
The Volcanoes will be counting on a vocal home crowd to help spur them to victory. Local organizers have made the General Admission seats, or green, blue and white bleachers, free admission in an attempt to fill up the stadium.
Those who wish to watch the game with a roof over their heads can pay P202 for grandstand seats. Tickets are available at Ticketworld.com.ph. Solar Sports will also air the game live.
The Philippines will be without first-choice scrum-half James Price, who injured his medial collateral ligament in the loss at Korea. But in his place will be Jake Letts, the most-capped Volcano, who is the brother of captain Michael Letts, the team's fullback.
The scrum half is the main link between the burly forwards and the speedy backs in Rugby Union, and is roughly the equivalent of the Quarterback position in American Football.
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Winger Patrice Olivier will need to be on song on Saturday. The Filipino-Frenchman leads all Pinoy try scorers in this campaign with two, one against Hong Kong and another versus Korea.
The Volcanoes will once again likely rely on the goalkicking of Alex Aronson, who had a perfect day with the boot against Hong Kong, knocking over two penalties and two conversions, one from near the touchline.
In spite of all the challenges Philippines coach Jarred Hodges is nonetheless confident of victory.
“We're confident we'll get the win but it's not going to be without a fight” the Australian told the Gulf News. “The UAE have rightfully been top flight for a number of years and they won't just hand it to us on a plate.”
An unusual word war between the sides arose when the Gulf News reported that a UAE official noted that the Philippine crowds are “mostly screaming females” whose cheering was “fairly incessant and indiscriminate.” He also inferred that they were not true Rugby fans.
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Hodges retorted “it doesn't matter if our supporters are teenage girls. What counts are the numbers in the stadium. The boys value that support and respond to it accordingly. If that's a problem for the opposition, that's a good thing.”
While the Philippine team is mostly composed of players who learned their Rugby abroad but have one or two Filipino parents, the UAE side is almost completely made up of naturalized players from British Commonwealth nations.
International Rugby Board rules stipulate that once a player has lived in a country for three years he may represent that country. That is how David Feeney, from Essex in England, has become a Volcano and how Timothy Bweheni, a native Papua New Guinean and U.P. student, also came to be eligible for the Philippine team in Sevens Rugby.
Follow Bob on Twitter @bhobg333. Follow the Volcanoes @PhilippineRugby.
