The Jebel Ali Dragons’ run of success has continued from their UAE Premiership title win last week as they secured the inaugural Eden Park Sevens Series on Friday night with a 20-7 victory over the Dubai Exiles in Jebel Ali.
The Dragons put in a blistering finals performance, running in comfortable winners off the back of Tim Fletcher’s virtuoso display.
“He’s a class act, he is a good player and he brings a lot to our side,” said Dragons coach Shane Thorton. “We didn’t have him last year and now he’s joined he’s just class.”
The Dragons took a first half lead when they scored a beautiful well-worked try, full of positional inter-changing and quick recycling, something Thorton has worked on and will look to sharpen up ahead of the Al Ain series in a week’s time.
“That’s one thing we always work on. When someone has the ball you have to be in behind supporting and you’ve got to be behind them,” he added. “Pure fitness was the difference in the end.”
In the second half, it was the Fletcher show as he ran in two second half tries, one of which he converted, turning the Exile’s only try of the game into a consolation.
“Now we keep building for Al Ain and get into shape for the Dubai Sevens,” continued Thorton. “We’ve always got to work on a few things and the main one is ball security. They played well considering they had to convert from 15s to sevens.
“We work on knock-ons and try to take those things out of our game and live with the ball. You have to have the ball in sevens, it’s so important, defending all the time just gets you tired.”
Elsewhere in the B competition, Dubai Hurricanes B came back from 21-0 to register a thrilling 24-21 win over the Dragons B thanks to a last-minute try by Shapur Anooshi, who received a superb pass from James Hamm who was the catalyst for the win.
“We dug in, played well all day,” Hurricanes coach Robbie Cameron said. “Our slowest man James “Hammy” Hamm, he was controlling it for us. We have our speed men, but if you can’t get the ball to the speed men then you’re not going to win. So we need to control it and that’s what Hammy does well.”
In the women’s A final, the Hurricanes won 15-5 over the Harlequins in a tight final with Nicole Bonner and Sarah Butler running in the all important tries.
The Quins got revenge in the B final when they won by a converted try after Canes’ captain Celia Slack had given her side the lead.
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