The girls from Cebu and their counterparts from Manila put on a fantastic game of rugby at the CIS field on Saturday, under the watchful eyes of national coaches Sue Konstanty and Expo Mejia, who was fresh from the success of the national men’s’ team, the Philippines Volcanoes, who have just gained promotion to the Asean 5 Nations Premiership.
The game started at a tremendous pace with both sides probing for openings, however due to excellent tackling and resolute defence neither side could make the breakthrough to get on the scoreboard in the first quarter.
The South changed their tactics in the second quarter and instead of trying to run everything kicked for position and from winning line-outs put pressure on the North’s try line. From a series of hard fought rucks scrum half Blessie de los Santos dived over to score the first try, duly converted by skipper Aiumi Ono. This was the only score of the first half, thus the South went into the break 7-0 up.
The second half started with the North on the front foot and from an attacking scrum they passed the ball wide and outpacing the defence scored in the corner, through Nikki Lira, making the score 7-5, with the try unconverted.
The South then woke up and with their back-row scavenging ball and spoiling the oppositions, openings started to appear and seeing the gap Aiumi Ono sliced through to score.
The game was still fairly evenly balanced, however fitness became a factor in the very hot conditions and mistakes crept in, and seizing on one of these Aiumi Ono broke away to score her second try, which she duly converted to make the score 19-5 in he home teams favour.
The North were not finished yet and fought their way back into he match through another unconverted try, which was scored by scrum-half Cassie Umali going blind after a scrum won against the head
However with time running out the North threw everything into the battle, however tiredness led to them giving a penalty away which was quickly taken, and Aiumi Ono used her speed to score her third try, which she converted to make the final score 26-10.
This was an excellent game to showcase the growing strength of Ladies rugby in the Philippines. Both sides showing good technical skills and neither backed away from the physical challenge.
Thus the Philippines can look forward with confidence to the upcoming international against Singapore, scheduled for the 2nd of June in Cebu.
