Abu Dhabi Harlequins head coach Mike McFarlane was proud of his injury-hit side, despite seeing them go down to their first defeat of the UAE Premiership season against fierce capital city rivals Saracens.
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Sarries edged a thrilling contest 20-18 on Thursday night, with Hassan Al Noobi’s penalty the difference, but McFarlane nevertheless praised his team which was missing 16 players for the clash.
“With so many injuries the players have shown fantastic commitment and passion to pull together, often playing with injuries or out of position,” he said. “We all can’t wait to get back to training on Monday.”
The visitors at Al Ghazal had chances to maintain their 100 per cent record to six games, but saw Luke Stevenson miss two late penalties, although McFarlane refused to criticise his fly-half.
He instead vented his frustration that his side got suckered into playing the forward dominated game that has served Sarries so well over the course of the last year.
Sounded like a thrilling game at Al Ghazal tonight. @SaracensUAE inflict a first defeat of the season on @Abudhabiquins, winning 20-18
— Matt Jones (@MattJones360) October 29, 2015
“Of course missing the kicks at the end were a killer but in all honesty we should have put points on the board with earlier opportunities,” said McFarlane. “We’re obviously disappointed, more so that we didn’t get to play our style of rugby and got sucked into the slow, set-piece based game of Sarries.
“That’s exactly what they would have wanted so congratulations to them on executing their game plan. We know we can’t play in second gear and expect to come away with a win.”
Captain Phil Abraham added: “In the second half we let them slow the ball down and play to their strengths. It was a tough loss but we need to play better and this result proved it.”
Having looked imperious since the start of the season, Quins’ first defeat means there is now just four points separating the top three, with Sarries third on 20 points and Dubai Exiles a point adrift of Quins after beating Jebel Ali Dragons on Friday night.
Sarries fly-half Matt Hutchings said he felt his side deserved victory but he still thinks it will take more than a first defeat to stop Quins.
“It was a huge win for us. We were lucky at the end with Luke missing two kicks but I think we deserved the win,” said the Welshman.
“It was a real hard battle between two top teams and hopefully one of the other teams can do us a favour by beating Quins and put us back in the title mix.”
Those thoughts were echoed by his compatriot and joint head coach Craig Nutt. “It was a fantastic result. We needed to win to make sure that we stay in the title race so we are happy with that,” he said.
