Sibu retain President’s Cup, Kuching reign supreme at MSSS

I extend my sincere apologies to KRFC for taking away their plaudits and giving it to Miri DRU in my column last week when I erroneously wrote that Miri were the first runnersup last year in the SRU President’s cup.

It was in fact KRFC who met Sibu in the final last year to vie for the crown of champions which they did again this year.

This year’s final standings for the SRU President’s Cup was the same as last year’s except that the third runners-up this time round was Bintulu RC.

In the two semi-final matches on Saturday last week in Sibu, it was Sibu, the defending champions meeting the SRU’s newest affiliate, and the tournament’s debutant, Bintulu RC.

In the second semi-final it was last year’s first runners-up, KRFC facing off against the second runners-up from last year, Miri.

The tournament last weekend showed that Sibu are still the top senior club side in the state as in their two matches, they did not concede any point while raking it up against their opponents on Saturday and Sunday.

Bintulu, being the new kid on the block, are still finding their feet as they don’t get to play together as a full 15’s side as often as they want to.

Bintulu was only set up at the tailend of last year and being the only rugby club in Bintulu, it is rather hard for them to play as often as they would like due to the lack of a bigger pool of players to draw on in Bintulu.

Their ranks are drawn mainly from students of UPM campus in Bintulu and those in the O & G sector in Bintulu.

It is a bit of a hassle for these players to get together over a weekend to play due to studies and work factors.

And if they want to have a friendly game, Bintulu will either have to make a two hours trip up north to Miri or travel south for about four hours to Sibu to play.

And due to the above factors, they are lacking playing time together but hopefully they can get around these problems and get the rest of the sides in the state some good games in the future.

KRFC have certainly moved on from last year and in Sibu showed glimpses of what they can aspire to when their players get enough playing time together as a unit.

They certainly did well enough to snuff out the challenge of Miri in their game and made the final for the second year running.

In the final they were able to match and hold Sibu in the opening exchanges before Sibu figured out a way to get around KRFC’s defences and laid siege to the latter’s defence.

On Sunday, in the first game for third and fourth place, it was Miri versus Bintulu and with both teams more or less evenly matched, it was certainly a hard call for those present as to who would trooped off the winners.

In the end it was the slightly better experience of Miri that saw them through, narrowly, by 5 points, 22-17.

Then it was the highlight of the weekend, the final between two traditional rivals for honours in local rugby, Sibu, the defending champions, and KRFC, whom they displaced 12 years ago.

In the opening exchanges, KRFC showed that they were in Sibu to wrest the cup and bring it back to Kuching but after the initial resistance, Sibu were able to break through and score their first try.

In the end Sibu ran out deserved winners and thus retained the trophy for another year with a 79-0 victory and KRFC had to settle for the first runnersup spot for another year.

Thank you to Sibu DRU for again doing a great job of organising and hosting the tournament yet again, and to the other three sides, KRFC, Bintulu RC and Miri DRU, in making it to Sibu for the weekend.

Thanks also to the referees who were in Sibu to help make it a success The tournament moved to Betong division earlier this week for the annual MSS Sarawak U-12 inter division touch, U-15 interschool 10’s and U-18 interdivision which started on Tuesday and ended yesterday.

Four divisions are taking part in the U-12 inter-division touch, host Betong, Kuching, Samarahan and Sibu.

In the U-15 inter-school 10’s, 10 schools are in the fray with the 10 schools drawn into 3 pools for the tournament.

The 10 schools are SMKA Sheikh HJ Othman Abdul Wahab (Shoaw), reigning Kuching U-15 champions Kolej DPAH Abdillah, SMK Asajaya, SMK Wira Penrissen, MK Penrissen No.1, SMK Taee, all from Kuching division.

SMK Saribas and Maktab Rendah Sains Mara Betong (MRSM Betong), representing Betong division, and SMK Sacred Heart from Sibu division and SM Sains from Miri division.

In the U-18 interdivision, five divisions are taking part, Kuching division who are the defending champions, Samarahan division, first runners-up last year, Betong division, Sibu division and Miri division.

Except for the U-15 interschool 10’s, the U-12 and Uin 18 inter-division categories are played on a league system with the winners after the league declared the champions.

On the opening day, in the U-18 category, Samarahan defeated Betong 24-0 while in the second match, Sibu won 22-0 against Miri in the morning.

In the afternoon’s match between Kuching and Samarahan, it was the former who won with a 25-0 scoreline.

On Wednesday, the second day of the tournament, Sibu defeated Betong 31-3 while in the afternoon’s 2 matches, Miri went down to Kuching 0-69 and Samarahan defeated Sibu 33-7.

On Thursday, Betong defeated Miri 26-10 in a morning match while Sibu went down to Kuching 68-0.

On Friday, the last day of the tournaments, in the day’s first game between Miri and Samarahan, it was the latter that trooped off the winners with a score of 48-0 while in the second game of the day between Kuching and Betong, it was Kuching, as expected who won with a 55-14 score.

So at the end of the U-18 category it was Kuching who retained their crown as the champions followed by Samarahan, also retaining their status as first runnersup.

Sibu took third, followed by Betong and Miri respectively.

In the U-12 inter-division touch category of the tournament, Kuching emerged champions after winning 25-24 against Betong, 37-29 versus Sibu and 56-24 against Betong.

Sibu took the first runnersup spot with a 3-2 win and loss record, winning their encounters against Samarahan 105-5 and Betong 62-31.

Betong grabbed the second runners-up spot with a 3-1 win loss record, their solitary win coming against the weakest team, Samarahan, 51-10, with the latter losing all their three games.

In the U-15 inter-school 10’s, the 10 schools were divided into 3 pools of 3, 3 and 4 for the preliminary rounds, with the top two table toppers of the 3 pools going into the second round.

In pool A were Shoaw, Wira Penrissen and Sains Miri while pool B had Kolej Abdillah followed by Penrissen No.1 and MRSM Betong, with Asajaya, Sacred Heart, Saribas and Taee in pool C.

Shoaw topped pool A with 15-0 and 44-0 wins against their pool counterparts, Wira Penrissen and Sains Miri respectively. Wira Penrissen came second courtesy of their win against Sains Miri, 41-0.

In pool B, Kolej were the top side with wins of 47-0 and 36-0 over their respective pool counterparts, Penrissen No.1 and MRSM Betong with the latter taking the second spot with their win over Pnerissen, 10-5.

In pool C, Taee finished on top with a draw and 2 wins, their draw coming in a 5-5 encounter against Saribas while their wins against Sacred Heart and Asajaya came through 15-0 and 17-5 victories respectively.

Sacred Heart took the runners-up spot with their 7-5 and 22-5 victories against Asajaya and Saribas while third spot fell to Saribas with their second draw, 10-10, coming against Asajaya. Asajaya took the wooden spot with their solitary point coming from their draw against Saribas.

The winners and first runners-up of the 3 pools went into the second round where they were split into 2 pools of 3, with pool A winners, SHOAW, in pool X followed by pool C’s and pool B’s first runners-up, Sacred Heart and MRSM Betong respectively.

Pool Y had pool C’s table topper, Kolej together with pool A’s first runners-up, Wira Penrissen and pool C’s top side, Taee.

In the second round games, played on the tournaments’ second day, Shoaw won 22-7 against Sacred Heart and 24-0 against MRSM Betong to finish top of their second round pool.

In pool X’s other game between Sacred Heart and MRSM Betong, it was the latter who won 12-0 to take the second spot.

In pool Y Kolej recorded wins against Taee and Wira Penrissen respectively with scores of 47-0 and 28-0 to top the pool.

In the other pool encounter, between Taee and Wira, Wira won 15-5 to grab second spot. Kolej won the final against Shoaw with 40-0 score.

Penrissen took the third place after defeating Sacred Heart 5-0 in an extra time sudden death match.

Many thanks to the Betong division Education department for organising the tournaments, and MRSM Betong and Vokasional Betong for hosting the matches.

And also to the referees who were in Betong for the four days of the tournaments to assist to make them a success, Alias Osman, Hishamuddin Zakaria, Suhaimi Salleh, and the four teachers from Betong who also assisted as referees/assistant referees, Hamdan Hassan of Vokasional Betong, Shahril Ben of SK Perpat, Mohd Mirwan Juni of SMKA Sri Aman and Ahmad Fauzi Mat Taib from SMK Beladin.

Others who were also in Betong were Baharin Amit, Mohd Noor and Mohamad Izuan Jais.