History repeated itself on Friday as a dominant final 20 minutes saw the Jebel Ali Dragons seal a 32-11 victory over Abu Dhabi Harlequins in the ARFU West Asia Champion Club final and secure a second successive treble.
Quins went into the game as favourites and led 11-6 at the break as Rob Buaserau scored a well worked try in an otherwise cagey opening 40 minutes at Zayed Sports City.
But the hosts had lost Mike Ballard by that stage, with the forward taken straight to hospital with what was described as a spinal shock injury, suffered midway through the first-half.
Sean Crombie nudged his side in front with the first of his two tries 10 minutes into the second period, before the Dragons stretched their lead with an excellent try from former Quins full-back Imad Reyal.
Quins then lost Mark Hibbs to the sin-bin with a little over 10 minutes remaining and their visitors made the most of their numerical advantage, as Crombie collected his second try of the game before another Abu Dhabi old-boy, Murray Strang, completed the scoring.
Having already secured UAE Premiership and sevens honours, victory meant that the Dragons successfully defended all three titles they won last season.
“They [Quins] had to be respected coming into the final 10 and 0, but I’ve said all season that when we hit our mojo I don’t think teams can compete with us,” Dragons coach Ross Mills said.
“I thought it was a very even game. They were trying to suck us in, they were doing a lot of kicking which we knew they would do and we just said at half-time what we needed to do was pick up the tempo a little bit, start playing our structure and tempo and we would be fine.
“There was never any panic, to be fair I didn’t feel at any time during the 80 minutes that they put us under a lot of pressure. We put them under a lot of pressure once we got on top.”
A feature of Quins’ 40-27 defeat of the Dragons in Jebel Ali in February had been the kicking of Luke Stevenson, however the fly-half was restricted to just six points via a pair first-half penalties.
The Englishman was also guilty of a couple of uncharacteristic misses from the kicking tee but he was not given too many shots at goal by a disciplined Dragons defence.
And after Crombie had edged his side in front early in the second half, Quins were denied two tries in as many minutes by the smallest of margins. Wing Patrick Hegarty thought he had restored his side’s lead only to see the touch judge’s flag go up for a foot in touch.
Moments later the ball found its way to the right wing where Chris Marshall streaked away, only to suffer the same fate.
If Quins were beginning to get a fimilar sinking feeling, it was compounded on the hour mark as former team-mate Reyal collected a delightful pass from Dragons fly-half Dan Bell to score.
The hosts were now chasing the game and as their attempts became more desperate, and with Hibbs in the bin, the Dragons took full advantage. Hooker Crombie highlighted his side’s dominance up front to complete his brace before Strang spotted a gap and held off several defenders to make the line.
“You could tell all game that one score would swing it,” Strang, on the losing side with Quins last season, said. “Thankfully we got that next score but to finish 21 points ahead flattered us.”
Quins captain Billy Graham said: “Unfortunately I think we lost our shape. Our set piece wasn’t as good as it has been in recent weeks and the Dragons were strong in that particular area, and especially at the breakdown we gave away too many penalties.”
