The Dubai Hurricanes collected their first points of the 2014 Gulf Top Six season on Friday by producing a comprehensive 43-0 victory over the Abu Dhabi Saracens.
Lindsey Fitzgerald, Chris Gregory, Anoosh Askapour, Olly Johnson and Chris Coupland all ran in tries while Andrew Powell had a sound game with the boot, kicking three conversions and four penalties.
Hurricanes captain Guy Potter told Sport360°: “I think it went as well as it could.
“We had to grind it out a little bit. I was unavailable last week so it was nice to come back and get back to winning ways.
“We still have a few players out and it wasn’t our strongest side but I don’t think many teams could shut out the Saracens. We’re just looking forward now, we have the Quins at home next week, tough match seeing what they did to the Dragons last week.”
The Saracens actually started the brighter side, driving a scrum over the try line that was eventually put down by the Hurricanes.
But the Dubai side hit back hard. Two penalties from Powell gave the Canes a 6-0 lead before they had had the chance to let their domination set in.
The Saracens started to make the mistakes that blighted their game, as well as being on the wrong end of a lot of the referee’s decisions.
A Coupland interception was worked out to Johnson who ran in a converted try before a superb solo run by Will Whitehouse set up Fitzgerald for an impressive one-handed catch and try.
The successful conversion gave the Canes a commanding 20-0 half time lead. An early penalty three minutes into the second half reset the tone after the break before the Canes made their presence fully felt.
A great break from Coupland set up a try for Askapour, which went unconverted.
The introduction of Clendon Penny gave the Saracens more bite and purpose and his maizey run should have given his side a wellearned try but Dougie Steel was unable to make the chance count.
Saracens coach Steve Evans said: “We started well in the first 10 minutes and then they controlled the game better than us.
“They picked off our weak defenders and they were just a lot quicker around the field. They controlled better and played in the right areas and when they attacked they got to where they wanted, whereas once we got about the fourth phase we’d turn it over.
“Everything is a learning curve for us at the moment. Our conditioning isn’t as good as the others, we are working on the fitness levels.”
RESULTS
Jebel Ali Dragons 34-13 Bahrain
Abu Dhabi Saracens 0-43 Dubai Hurricanes
Doha 7-21 AD Harlequins
