A step closer to a dream

The Arabian Gulf, who play Chinese Taipei in the Asian Five Nations Division One Final tomorrow, are one win away from their first major step in qualifying for the IRB Rugby World Cup in 2011.

The Gulf brushed aside Thailand, dominating the first half and winning 36-17 at The Sevens ground in Dubai on Wednesday evening. And although they appeared complacent in the second half, new coach Bruce Birtwistle was a relieved man.

"My nervousness is now gone," said the New Zealander, in charge of an international team for the first time. "I think we played reasonably well in the first half and we certainly got into our patterns of play that we worked so hard to achieve at training during the last couple of weeks.

"At half-time we wanted to keep our shape because we were getting on top of them at scrum time, our line-out was going particularly well and we were direct in our backline attacks.

"But, we lost our shape a bit in the second half, started to cough up a little ball and lacked a bit of accuracy. That gave them some opportunity to climb back into the match.

"Now that the nerves are out of the way, it was probably not a bad performance."

The discipline by the home team in the second-half was undoubtedly a concern , and at one stage they were down to 13 men with both centre Marcus Smith and left-wing Khalid Helal in the sin-bin for high tackles.

"You can't afford to have two guys off the park at the same time, but we will be conscious of that and will be speaking about it for [tomorrow]," said Birtwistle.

The yellow card for Egyptian-born Helal – albeit for a desperate try-saving tackle – slightly tarnished what was otherwise an impressive debut for the 17-year-old.

The English College student, who has resided in the UAE for the past four years, has played in both the Gulf U16 and U18 teams prior to being called up by Birtwistle to train with the squad along with five other members of the U18 team.

"He had a good first game," said Birtwistle, a former coach for the Auckland Colts. "He is a young schoolboy and I thought he covered the field really well.

"He got himself injected into the game, his defence was strong, his positional play was very good and all-round he can be very proud of his first game."

Helal and Omani-born Taif Al Delamie were the only two Arab players in the team, and Birtwistle believes they will be role models for other locals in the future.

"Absolutely, any schoolboy selected to go on to play international rugby – it doesn't matter which part of the world you are in – is an outstanding achievement," he said.

"He has come in and applied himself extremely well with this group of guys and I think he is a role model in the way he has applied himself and the way he is playing.

"Taif was brushing off tackles, spinning away and staying on his feet. He is also a fine ambassador to have for the game, a great person to have in the team and, as vice-captain, is part of our leadership group."

Part of the Gulf's success against Taiwan can be traced to their involvement in the Dubai Rugby World Cup Sevens last month with most of the squad still in good physical shape.

Birtwistle though, had the tough task of changing the individual all-out-attack mindset of sevens to a more team-focused ethic required in the full game.

"We focused on that a lot and wanted to keep our structure," he said. "Technically the two games are completely different and we were just trying to get our guys running patterns and I think they played reasonably well in that way.

"But the sevens players we had, the likes of Taif and Marcus – I thought they controlled the centre of the pitch well. Sevens has obviously helped them in their strength, speed-work and probably their accuracy in defence.

"The guys have come back from the Sevens with a lot of confidence."

Should the Arabian Gulf beat Chinese Taipei tomorrow, they will be promoted to the top tier of the Asian Five Nations next year, with that tournament serving as the official World Cup qualifying tournament for the continent.

Birtwistle watched his next opponents beat Sri Lanka 36-24 on Wednesday, and believes they will provide a far sterner Test. "We're going to have to work a lot harder and dig deeper because they seem to be more structured, a lot more physical and they have more size than Thailand.

"We have our work cut out and obviously we can go away and refine a bit of our details and just front-up and do the work.

"We did our job on Wednesday night, now it is a matter of regrouping and adjusting ourselves tactically. We will do some fine-tuning, but we will certainly come out and put in the best performance possible."


'Gulf in good position'

Arabian Gulf captain Dave Clark believes the current team are cut above the sides from the past.

"I think it's the first time I'm captain of a good Arabian Gulf side," said Clark. "I have seen some changes over the years, but this is the first time I have seen the youth coming into the game, some old heads, new heads and some really fit guys out there – so we're in a good position."

And despite having just two days of rest in between their 36-17 win against Thailand on Wednesday evening and the Asian Five Nations Division One final against Chinese Taipei tomorrow, Clark reveals the team will be ready.

"We are used to it, at this level we do get tournaments like this to save in cost and save in travelling.

"We have played Chinese Taipei in the past and it was a tight game, from that game we know what to expect. They are very strong and I'm expecting a very physical game – something that we're up to."

Clark was also pleased at how well 17-year-old schoolboy Khalid Helal adapted in his Arabian Gulf debut.

"I was very impressed. This was his first outing and he stuck at it well despite getting himself a yellow card," added Clark.

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