Oval Office July 2008
Harlequins go in to Bat for Abu Dhabi
Spin-offs from the affiliation between Abu Dhabi Rugby Club and the UK Harlequins are growing by the minute, and they’re all good
Other clubs around the world linked with the Harlequins are being approached to work with the Abu Dhabi outfit, an initiative which could lead to players from pretty much anywhere joining the UAE team, MM has learned. If a rugby player is heading for the Gulf and he plays with a Harlequins-linked club somewhere he will be pointed towards the Abu Dhabi affiliate.
Abu Dhabi Harlequins, renamed from the Bats, will wear the famous four-square Harlequins jersey but in the colours of the UAE flag.
It won’t be just players who’ll benefit from the new development. The same will apply to the social side if someone is coming to the Gulf from an affiliated team and wants to find their ‘local’ rugby club – when they’re chasing the old style – steak sandwiches, sausage sizzles, new mates, the scene.
Richard Harris, the chairman of what is now the Abu Dhabi Harlequins, has also confirmed that the Harlequins Academy run by the legendary Dean Richards, the famous club’s director of rugby, will be held in Abu Dhabi on Nov 5-8 this year.
This will boost the standard of young rugby talent in the region and also open the door to Harlequins for anyone a bit special.
Abu Dhabi will also send two coaches a month to Harlequins for a year.
“Our view is the better our coaches are the higher the standard of the game here will become,” Harris told MM.
He also confirmed that England’s rugby officialdom has approached Abu Dhabi to base the 7s squad there for the World Cup in Dubai.
A pat on the back to Etihad too for supporting such a sound initiative that can only be good for the sport.
Now that Abu Dhabi have made the breakthrough, expect other Gulf clubs to tie up with famous clubs around the world.
Still in the UAE capital, bringing a touch of real-deal quality to Gulf rugby is Jo Czerpak, the Abu Dhabi five-eighth (sorry, stand-off, first-five, fly-half, first receiver… don’t all write to me).
Czerpak wore the England shirt at Under 19 level and has a Level Three coaching certificate. He has done his three years in the region so can now play for the Gulf so that should cover the number 10 spot for a while.
Czerpak is also in the seven-a-side squad but the feeling is he might have lost a bit of speed for the run-on team. Maybe, but it didn’t seem to cause problems for Eric Rush and Campo in the modified game. And England were never better at 7s than when they had Henry Paul (no, not the driver from the Ritz in Paris) as first receiver and ball distributor.
The Gulf 7s boys are back home after a pretty slack showing at the Rome 7s. Gulf coach Mike Lunjevich is spewing over his team’s performance. He says they knew it would be a tough ask but one particular game against a club side was there for the taking.
A lot has been made of the 40-week training programme to bring the squad to its peak for the IRB World Cup Sevens in March 2009. This is also hoped to lead to better results in the 7s in Dubai at the end of the year.
The squad faced some stiff opposition in Rome with a mix of national, and invitational sides taking part including France, Italy, British Army, Penguins RFC and a ‘Sevens Stars of Roma’ team led by Wasale Serivi, said by many to be the best to have played the short-side game.
The Gulf lads didn’t make an impact on the tournament. This was despite being coached briefly by Paul Treu, the South African 7s mentor. Treu is one of the gun international short-side coaches. He was in Dubai to check the lay of the land before his side plays here later this year.
Gulf coach Mike Lunjevich hasn’t minced his words. He tells the AGFU website the shoddy performance was a severe “wake up call” for his charges and they’ll have to improve a lot, particularly for the 7s World Cup.
“The fundamental skills are completely lacking,” says Lunjevich, a former Croatia international who played a good level of rugby in New Zealand and has been in charge of the Gulf’s sevens side since 2006.
“Things as basic as body position, how to draw and pass, how to run a cut – it seems there is a complete lack of knowledge of how to do these things.”
The Gulf went down to the French national team, as well as the Marauders, a powerful invitation side who have a number of professional sevens players in their ranks and this was pretty much to be expected.
But Lunjevich is filthy that his side failed to beat an Italian club team.
“We never should have lost to them. We were all over them in the set pieces, but we pressed the self-destruct button in the second-half. We only took 10 players, and it was not our strongest team, but we have learned a lot about the players that did go. The whole reason we went [to Rome] was because we knew it was going to be tough. The players realise now that they have a tough few months ahead of them.”
The British Army were the eventual winners in Rome. The Gulf’s next tournament will be the Sri Lanka 7s early September where they normally do well.
The Rome event is likely to be a prominent feature on the calendar before too long.
The Arabian Gulf Team in Rome was:
Aaron Browne (Dubai Hurricanes)
Stephen Cooper (Dubai Exiles)
David Clarke ((Dubai Exiles)
Chris Gregory (Dubai Hurricanes)
Wayne Esslemont (Dubai Exiles)
Sean Hurley (Dubai Dragons)
James Wellings (Dubai Exiles)
Dan Patching (Dubai Exiles)
Francois Coetzer (Dubai Exiles)
Ayman Razak (Gulf Sevens)
Coach: Mike Lunjevich
Manager: John Griffith
Physio: Lacey Congram
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