Abu Dhabi Harlequins maintained their unbeaten start to the Gulf Top Six season with a resounding 48-0 win over Bahrain at Zayed Sports City on Friday.
The hosts were denied the use of their preferred pitch with a Gaelic football festival on but were unaffected by the move, running in six tries from as many scorers.
Sam Bolger, Iziq Foa’i, Jonny Marshall, Dermot Kelly, Rich Davies and Matt Hutchings all touched down with fly-half Luke Stephenson converting all six tries and adding two penalties to take his personal tally to 18 points.
“I thought we scored a few well orchestrated tries,” player-coach Jeremy Manning said. “We worked hard all week on our patterns and we know how to play rugby when we’re not supposed to. We scored a few very good tries and there were few where I’d say we had the right bounce of the ball.
“It was an all-round performance. Fair play to Bahrain, I think they’re a tough outfit but I think we just ground them down and it opened up for a few more tries.”
Quins were missing several players, including Manning through injury, while second-row Phil Brady was suspended.
The home side made light of those absentees though as after a rather fortuitous first try they raced to a 20-0 lead at the break.
Having conceded again shortly after the restart, Bahrain then enjoyed their best spell on territory and possession but were unable to force their way over the line.
Kelly scored a scintillating breakaway try that saw Quins turn the ball over on their own goalline before launching a rapid counter attack that ended with the winger sprinting down the right touchline to score.
That secured the bonus point for the league leaders, but they weren’t finished there as Davies scooped up a pass from Patrick Heggarty with Bahrain caught napping.
And late on replacement centre Hutchings broke through the defence to notch the team’s sixth try. It gave the scoreline some gloss but was perhaps hard on a Bahrain side who were missing several key players themselves.
“The most disappointing aspect is that we didn’t put any points on the board ourselves,” Bahrain’s replacement scrum-half, Tom Hanratty, said. “Considering the effort and the work that went in – that’s probably the hardest 80 minutes we’ll play all season – so to not get any recognition in terms of the scoreboard is quite hard to take.”
Elsewhere, Doha scored a converted try with the last play of the game to rescue a 36-36 draw at home to Abu Dhabi Saracens while Jebel Ali Dragons secured a bonus point 35-17 win at Dubai Hurricanes.
RESULTS
Doha 36-36 AD Saracens
Hurricanes 17-35 JA Dragons
AD Harlequins 48-0 Bahrain
