Kudos to success of inter-teknik 10’s, MSSN age group tournaments

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LAST week the annual inter-teknik 10’s was ran off with five teknik (technical and vocational) schools from throughout the state meeting at the Song Kheng Hai field on Friday and Saturday.These five schools were the host SM Vocational Kuching, defending champions SM Vocational Sibu, SM Teknik Sejingkat, SM Vocational Matang and SM Vocational Betong.

The five schools were drawn into two pools of two and three with Sibu and Betong in pool A and Kuching, Sejingkat and Matang in pool B.

Sejingkat drew 10 all with Matang while Matang defeated Kuching 26-0 and Kuching went down 46-0 to Sejingkat in pool B while in pool A Sibu easily defeated Betong 22-0.

In the first semi-final on Saturday, Sibu defeated Matang 5-0 to go into the final while in the second semi-final Sejingkat won 17-0 against Betong to face Sibu in the final.

In the final Sibu won 15-12 to retain their crown as champions of the teknik schools but this year they were not as impressive as they were last year when they played with a verve that the others did not possess.

Sejingkat who were simply not the Sejingkat of old in the U-18 inter-school a week earlier were better than their counterparts from Kuching, Matang and Betong because the latter sides were just that bit worse than Sejingkat.

In the final they were on down and out until their stand-off, easily their best player who happened to be a former SMK Agama Sheikh Hj Othman Abdul Wahab (Shoaw) player, pulled them back into the game with a one man show.

But his efforts and endeavours were just not enough for him to carry the day. The rest of his teammates were just standing around and watching him play all by himself instead of supporting him when he made breaks from his line.

Paul and Halim from Sejingkat and Sibu respectively gave away the prizes to the third and second placed schools while the SM Teknik Sejingkat principal Abdul Munap Sheikh Abdul Kadir presented the champion trophy to Sibu.

Many thanks to the ever reliable and inimitable Zulkaranainhisham Sarbini for his technical assistance to Vocational Kuching and also to Baharin Amit, Yusop Mokhsen, Fadzily Abdul Manan Ibrahim and Wright for kindly helping to blow and run the lines during the two-day tournament.

The 2010 MSSN U-12 inter-district touch, U-18 inter-division 15’s and U-15 inter-schools’ 10’s organised by the Kuching division Education Department which started on Tuesday ended yesterday evening with the finals of the U-15 inter-schools and U-18 inter-division.

In the U-12 touch rugby only three districts took part namely Kuching, Sibu and Betong.

Miri, originally slated to take part did not send a side for this tournament.

This tournament was held at the SMK St Joseph field and was won by Sibu with Kuching the first runners-up and Betong third.

In the first game on Tuesday Kuching went down narrowly to Sibu 32-34, and on Wednesday Sibu scored their second win against Betong 85-61.

In the last game on Thursday Kuching rolled over Betong 59-7 to claim the first runners-up spot.

In the U-15 inter-schools’ 10’s nine schools were in the fight for honours and the schools were from Kuching and Samarahan divisions.

The other divisions did not send any representative I believe due to financial problem.

The nine schools were defending champions Kolej DPAH Abdillah, SM Sains Kuching (Sainsku), last year’s first runners-up and Shoaw, the second runners-up from last year, SMK St Joseph, SMK Demak Baru, SMK Agama Matang, SMK Wira Penrissen, SMK Sg Tapang and SMK Asajaya.

The schools were drawn into three pools with Kolej seeded No. 1 in pool A with Wira Penrissen and St Joseph. In pool B, Sainsku seeded second had Sg Tapang and Agama Matang for company while in pool C Shoaw seeded No. 3 were with Asajaya and Demak Baru.

In the pool preliminary games played on Tuesday, Kolej got their campaign off to a winning start with a 48-0 win against Wira Penrissen and 51-0 whitewash of St Joseph to top their pool and advance into the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Kolej were joined in the quarter-finals by St Joseph who won 15-5 against Wira Penrissen.

In pool B, Sainsku won their game against Sg Tapang 27-5 and 31-7 against Agama Matang to join Kolej and St Joseph in the quarters.

Agama Matang also advanced into the quarters with a 17-5 win over Sg Tapang. Quarter-finalists from pool C were Shoaw and Asajaya with Shoaw recording 43-5 and 59-0 wins against Asajaya and Demak Baru while Asajaya defeated Demak Baru 44-0. Demak Baru were making their debut in the tournament having made their debut in the U-18 category two weeks ago in the Kuching division U-18 inter-school.

In the quarter-final match-ups on Wednesday Shoaw faced St Joseph, Kolej took on Sg Tapang, Sainsku were up against Wira Penrissen and Asajaya faced Agama Matang for the semi-finals spot on Thursday morning.

The semi-finalists were Shoaw, Kolej, Sainsku and Asajaya with Shoaw and Kolej recording identical scores of 48-0 against their counterparts St Joseph and Sg Tapang while Sainsku won 10-5 against Wira Penrissen and Asajaya thumped their opponents Agama Matang 41-0.

In the semi-finals it was Shoaw versus Asajaya and Sainsku against Kolej and as expected Shoaw and Kolej advanced to the final yesterday for another showdown with Shoaw winning 24-0 and Kolej doing batter than their final opponents with a 44-0 win.

Asajaya took third place in the U-15’s with a 17-12 win against Sainsku in the third/fourth place play-off on Thursday afternoon.

And in the final, Shoaw beat Kolej 13-10 for the title.

In the U-18 inter-division an upset was created on the first day when Samarahan defeated Sibu 33-12 in the first game with Kuching rolling over Miri 106-0.

Samarahan, with their shock defeat of Sibu signalled their intention and served notice to Kuching that they are after their crown.

In the second round of games on Wednesday, Miri went down to Samarahan 5-54 while Kuching defeated Sibu 67-0. In the third round on Thursday, Sibu met Miri and claimed third place with a 54-0 win to confine Miri to the wooden spoon spot.

In the final, Kuching won 44-0 against Samarahan.

Overall the tournaments were a success but the playing standards seemed to have dropped off a bit amongst a few of the schools in the U-15’s as compared to last year and the previous years.

Shoaw and Kolej were again the yardstick by which the others are judged and they were miles ahead of the others when it comes to technical and tactical nous.

Safe for Demak Baru who were making their debut, the others do not seem to have found a winning formula to carry on and step up from last year like Sainsku who were third last year but this year did not even make the semi-finals.

Sg Tapang are perennial underachievers with some of their players amongst the smallest of the players seen during the four days of the tournaments.

Wira Penrisenn who provided the bulk of the Samarahan U-18 side also were a let down in the U-15’s while Agama Matang and St Joseph are somewhere in between the top sides and the lower sides.

Again there was a distinct gulf in the standards of the schools like Shoaw and Kolej and the rest with Shoaw and Kolej recording scores close to or over the half century mark and conceding nothing at all.

This domination of the game by these two schools is not good for the sport at this level as the other schools year in year out are just being swiped aside like flies by Shoaw and Kolej.

In every school tournament these two schools are the finalists and the rest are just left behind to pick over the crump.

And even then Kolej have yet to consistently defeat Shoaw although they did it last year but can they do it again this year?

When it comes to games against Shoaw and Kolej the rest are just like sheep led to the slaughter or cannon fodder with the only doubt being the scoreline.

None of these schools have managed to restrict either Shoaw or Kolej to scores in the low 10’s or 20’s, with the usual figures being in the half century mark or thereabouts.

What is wrong here? Or rather wherein lies the problem(s)? Lack of playing time? Shoaw and Kolej in their lead up to the tournament also did not play that many friendlies except for a trip to Betong by Shoaw and the RMC 10’s by Kolej last month.

The other schools could have taken the initiative to organise friendlies amongst themselves during the weeks leading up the tournament to work out their play and identify weak points but this did not happen.

This is not a phenomenon that is new.

Kudos for a successful tournament goes to Zulkaranainhisham and his merry band of assistants who have again pulled off a wonderful job in putting it all together.

And also bravo to all the referees and assistant referees who turned up over the four days to assist in officiating the games and running the lines. Alias Osman, Hishamudin Zakaria, Ismawi (Mawi), Baharin Amit, Azirudin (Din), Yusop Mokhsen, Fadzily Abdul Manan Ibrahim, Sharul, Wright, Charles Jonathan, Nasihin, Mat Noor, Zamzy Abdul Rahman and Mark Jerry all deserve this honour.