THIS weekend will see a number of friendlies in Kuching.There will be a mini 7’s and 10’s league among the Sukma training squad, Shoaw old boys, Kuching Politeknik, Unimas and Kolej DPAH Abdillah.
This will be played at the Kolej Abdillah field in Petra Jaya while over at Song Kheng Hai Ground, there will be a friendly between UiTM and Club.
The mini league is part of the buildup to a number of tournaments for a number of the teams like the Sukma training squad, Kolej Abdillah and Kuching Politeknik.
Both the Sukma squad and Kolej Abdillah will be in KL next week for the RMC 10’s where the former will be up against a number of the other states’ Sukma sides in the club category.
For Kolej Abdillah that will also be in KL for the same tournament in the schools’ category, today’s event is also part of their preparations for the upcoming Kuching Zone U-18 Inter-school Tournament while for Kuching Politeknik and Unimas, this mini league is to help their coaches and team managers fine-tune their sides for the upcoming Intra-Varsity Rugby 10’s later this year and also another upcoming tournament soon.
The league will kick off at 3.30pm and all the sides should report at the Kolej Abdillah field by 2.30pm, the latest, to find out who kick off first.
Over at the Song Kheng Hai Ground, UiTM and Club are also preparing for an upcoming tournament as far as I know.
Unfortunately, of the other schools down for the Kuching Zone U-18 Inter-School next month, none has yet played any friendlies among themselves to prep for the tournament.
With just about a month to go, I’m still in the dark as to what is happening with these schools. Are they in the midst of their preparations? Or have they yet to get their players together and sort themselves out?
Most of these schools have sent their coaches to the two courses, conducted jointly by the SRU and MRU and Cobra-Penguins, and so should theoretically be better but there are no indications they are organising friendlies among themselves.
It is all in the dark as to what’s happening with them.
In previous years, the Inter-School tournaments were held soon after the school year started in January to select the zonal teams for the Inter-Division where players would be picked for the National School Sports’ Council (MSSM) National Championships in March. But this year, rugby was initially dropped from the list of 24 sports for the National Championships and so the Inter-School for the various zones and the Inter-Division were postponed to next month and May respectively.
This means they have had more time to sort themselves out this year but are apparently not grabbing the opportunity to make use of the extra time to prepare themselves properly to fight for honours in the zonal tournament and challenge SMA Sheikh Haji Othman Abdul Wahab’s (Shoaw) supremacy.
With the extra time to prepare and their coaches’ newly acquired knowhow, I expect them to show improvement and narrow the gap between and among themselves and Shoaw during the Inter-School next month.
Sarawak will be sending a team to the National MSSM Championship after all this year.
With the DPM who is also the Education Minister, having announced that funds will be available – and have been made available – to reinstate all the sports, initially dropped from the National Championship this month in Selangor, the event (National MSSM Championship) will be held in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, from June 7 and 12 – one week before the rugby competition starts in Sukma XIII.
This was relayed to me by Zulkaranainhisham (Zul) last weekend when I caught up with him. I believe the various zonal education departments would have informed the technical chairmen concerned about this. So with the goal of representing the state back on the agenda, and better coaching skills acquired from the two courses by their coaches, the upcoming Inter-School Tournament in Kuching and the Inter-Division in May should see an improvement in playing standards, especially on the basics and techniques.
Will the school players be able to step up to the plate from the new inputs from their coaches and push or challenge Shoaw? Time will tell.
Last weekend, there were a number of friendlies at the Song Kheng Hai Ground, starting with the Sukma-Barbarians combined against Kuching Politeknik.
Then, it was a 10’s friendly between Club and Unimas followed by Kolej’s U-18 side for the inter-school and RMC 10’s against Club with the last friendly being a full game for the others who did not get to play in the earlier friendlies.
In the first game, it was Sukma-Baabaas Combined that won 45-10 with the combined side leading 19-0 at the break.
In the second game between Club and Unimas, it was a close affair with both sides putting up players being groomed and exposed for upcoming tournaments while in the Kolej-Club friendly, it was the former that won easily.
Kolej players showed they were going to be a force to be reckoned with in the coming Kuching Zone Inter-School Tournament with a number of their players still eligible to play for the U-15 side which effectively means the team will be together for at least two more years.
And if Kolej keep improving as seen from their performance last week, Shoaw will be looking over their shoulders soon.
In the day’s final friendly, it was between two sides fielding players who did not play in any of the other earlier friendlies and it was quite even. Although I believe it were the Oranges who prevailed over the Blacks in the end.
Kuching Politeknik have been using the friendlies over the past few weeks to expose their side and allow their coach, Azirudin, and team manager, Adhar, to have a look at the players’ individual and collective strengths and weaknesses and work on them.
Judging from what had been happening over the past few weeks and series of friendlies, Politeknik are on the way to doing well in the Intra-Varsity Championships later in the year. The most noticeable thing about them is their ‘presence’ compared to previous years.
Starting from last year when Azirudin and Adhar took over the team, they have been showing up quite often for friendlies against Club and the other teams and even taking part in the revived Guinness League, organised by Club last year.
I believe they will be one of the teams in the league this year if Club do run it.
Aside from them, the other tertiary institute sides – Unimas and and UiTM – have also been showing up for friendlies during the weekends against Club.
The increased presence of these three sides – Kuching Poli, Unimas and UiTM – is certainly good for the game in Kuching as it allows all the players to look forward to a weekend of friendlies rather than just the weekly diet of pick-up games, depending on the number of faces present by 5.30pm.
Up north in Miri, an expatriate, Landale Cranfield from Shell, will organise a junior rugby programme for kids aged five to 12. This programme will be held every Saturday from 9.30am to 10.30am and Landale’s aim is to introduce the game to kids early so that they will understand and enjoy playing it in a non-competitive environment during their formative years.
It is also an opportunity for the parents to understand the game better and know what it can offer. I have met Landale during my trip to Miri last year and he told me he had done a similar programme when he was based in India and it was very successful with hundreds of kids learning and playing rugby.
It is an interesting programme to pique the interests of kids in the rugby and when they go to secondary school, they will already have the basics and it would be so much easier to coach them the advanced aspects of the game.
If this programme takes off, Miri should be producing good players in the future. For parents interested in having their kids play the game, they can turn up at Piasau 100 today before 9.30am to see Landale Cranfield.
Today’s game will be a friendly between UiTM and Club at 4.30pm and all interested should get down to the field along Jalan Padungan behind Everrise supermarket and see either Yusop or Dick B.
Turn-out last week was quite good and hopefully, it will be the same today.