PH men’s rugby team aims for back-to-back gold in SEA Games

 

Rugby was an unlikely source of medals in the 2015 SEA Games in Singapore and this year’s team would like to continue that trend.

In 2015 the men, dubbed the Philippine Volcanoes, vanquished Malaysia in the gold medal game while an almost completely homegrown Filipina side took home bronze in Women’s sevens. Only 7-a-side rugby and not the 15-a-side game is played in the SEA Games.

According to Jake Robrigado Letts, who is both a national team player and is head of the national teams with the Philippine Rugby Football Union, several players from the 2015 men’s team are still awaiting release from their clubs in Japan to be allowed to play. Meanwhile a passel of promising Philippine-based boys is training and hoping to make the final cut of 12 players.

“The local boys are working hard, are dedicated to the process and are improving weekly,” says coach David Johnston, a very experienced 59-year old Canadian who has been living in the Philippines for 5 years. Johnston had been the Canadian U21 15-a-side men’s coach in the past.

Johnston says Letts, Harry Dionson Morris, and Chris Alamil Everingham are the Philippines-based players who have an excellent chance of making the squad barring injury. In a few weeks a bunch of talented overseas-based players will jet in, namely Harrison Carceller Blake from Australia, Volney Ricafort Rouse from the USA, Jason Celada Lynch from Australia, and 2015 gold medalists Vincent Amar Young, a Fil-Brit, and Chris Baltazar Hitch from Australia.

(In case you are wondering, the PRFU likes to mention the middle names of the players, more often than not the maiden names of their mothers, to emphasize their Filipino heritage.)

But there are also homegrown Filipino players who might make the team. Jonel Madrona, 21, is from Clark in Pampanga while 24-year old Lito Ramirez is from Muntinlupa. They are the best of a growing bunch of Philippine-born and raised players who are taking up this British game. Another Clark-based kid, Josh Aragon, is also in the mix.

The Philippines has joined two mens Sevens tournaments this year, winning the Asian Trophy Sevens in Qatar in February and finishing third in the South East Asian Sevens in Singapore in April. In that competition Alex Norona Aronson went down injured and Madrona filled in brilliantly for him.

“He was one of the best players in Singapore for us,” says Johnston, who describes Madrona as being like “Spiderman” because of his shifty, elusive style of play.

Standing about 5’2” and weighing likely somewhere between 130 and 140 pounds, Madrona is living proof that you don’t need to be a big strapping behemoth to play rugby.

Madrona was born in Bicol but moved to Angeles, Pampanga at an early age. Madrona studied in a school for orphans in Angeles and stumbled upon the nascent rugby program there. He shone immediately and was so gifted that he even went to England to train at the age of 14 in 2010.

Letts says that despite their small size, the homegrowns belong, and are not liabilities on defense.

“If they couldn’t play defense then they wouldn’t be on this team,” he says.

Both Madrona and Ramirez are also development officers for the PRFU, teaching kids the sport at the grassroots level.

“We have the team to compete,” insists Letts, who also adds that “we are definitely going there to win back-to-back.” He does acknowledge however that “Sevens is such a fickle sport.”

The Sevens form of Rugby is played over two 7-minute halves and puts a premium on speed rather than brute force. The consensus among the rugby cognoscenti in the Philippines is that we are stronger in this game than in the 15s variant. The Philippines has already qualified for the Sevens Rugby World Cup but has never been remotely close to achieving that in Fifteens.

There will be 8 teams in Men’s Rugby in the SEA Games split into two groups of 4. The Philippines is in a group with Thailand, Laos and Indonesia. They play 3 round-robin matches in one day in the group. No one is eliminated in the group stage; it serves solely as a seeding mechanism for the knockout quarterfinals which will proceed to the semis and medal matches the following day.

It is therefore imperative that the Volcanoes sweep their group to give themselves an easier path to the gold medal.

Letts says the hosts Malaysia, who they beat 24-7 for gold two years ago, could be their stiffest challenge should they meet in the knockout rounds. According to Letts the Malaysians sent their Sevens squad to New Zealand to train for the SEA Games.

The Filipinas on the other hand are out to improve on their third-place finish from 2015. Two overseas-bred Filipinas, Tanya Escala Bird from the UK and Camilla Falsis Maslo from Canada, are coming in to boost the squad. They will be supported by homegrown stalwarts Sylvia Tudoc, Rassiel Sales and Acee San Juan.

Letts says the women’s team will be 80 percent composed of holdovers from the 2015 squad. Aussie Shirley Russell will coach the team, with Ai Den Ng as the assistant coach.

No doubt things are looking up for the sport of Rugby in the Philippines. More podium finishes in Malaysia will definitely keep that momentum going. – Rappler.com

Follow Bob on Twitter @PassionateFanPH