At last Saturday’s Jakarta Highland Gathering (JHG), rugby in the form of ‘Tag Rugby’ made a triumphant return to the event as five mixed teams battled it out for the title of JHG Champions on the hallowed Karawaci turf. Alistair Speirs, the JHG ’13 Chairman commented, “This is what we missed last year and what the Games needed. The spirit was great and the play fun to watch.”
The teams as they lined up on the day were the Komodos, the Bantengs, Jakarta Touch Rugby and a squad of Jakarta Under 20’s players who supplied an ‘A’ and ‘B’ team on the day. Each of these teams were also supplied with 4-5 young ladies who are part of the Indonesian Women’s Rugby development program. It was fantastic to see how each of the teams embraced their young ladies and how these ladies showed the boys that they can play Rugby as well.
The teams played each other once during the pool games (7 minutes duration) and it was the Bantengs who finished on top following these matches with 3 wins and a draw, followed by the Komodos with 3 wins and a loss, then Jakarta Touch Rugby with a 2 and 2 record, the Under 20’s B’s secured a win and 3 losses and the Under 20’s A’s, a draw and 3 losses. These results set up the draw for the Semi Finals which saw the Bantengs versus a combined Under 20’s and the Komodos versus Jakarta Touch Rugby.
Some of the highlights of the pool play was the Under 20’s A’s drawing 3-all with the eventual winners of the competition plus a classic swan dive try by Ed Winton which was setup by a back pedaling Mark Brown. It was also fantastic to see the girls showing how much they have learned about Rugby thanks to their Coaches, Steve Barber, David Nye and Bridie Johnson, so that they really had a go and did not back down to the larger male players.
The Bantengs playing with the class they had shown all day accounted for the Under 20’s 3-0 in their Semi Final, while the Komodos outclassed Jakarta Touch Rugby 3-1 in the other Semi.
Jakarta Touch Rugby showed some silky skills in the Bronze Medal Playoff against the Under 20’s running out 4-0 winners.
In what was a tough and evenly contested Final (pictured above) that went into overtime before Rhinos flyer, Yucil latched onto a loose pass and sped away to score the golden point try which saw the Bantengs win the “2013 Mixed Tag Rugby Competition” 1-0 over the Komodos.
The real winner on the day was Indonesian Rugby, with well over 50 players taking part in the competition, including 23 ladies. Another great thing was that over 70% of the players involved were Indonesian or of Indonesian descent. Indonesian Rugby would also like to thank all those who helped with the refereeing on the day plus last but least, thanks Indonesian Rugby stalwart, Steve Barber for organising a fantastic and successful competition.