The only difference in Dubai’s 36-0 victory over the Desert Foxes from their previous meeting was the venue, with the home turf of Al Ain Rugby Club offering little asylum from the Barracudas’ domination Friday night.
Though the Dubai side had already cemented the top seed in the playoffs heading into the final weekend of the Emirates American Football League (EAFL) regular season, the players still celebrated the satisfaction of a flawless campaign.
“It feels great,” said running back Quinton Collins. “We’ve gone through a lot of things and the team has really come together since the beginning. It feels great to be on top going into the playoffs.”
Collins accounted for two of Dubai’s five touchdowns against Al Ain, the team he had played for the previous three seasons.
The powerhouse back put the Barracudas on the board with a 1-yard plunge in the first quarter before showing his receiving skills by hauling in a 10-yard touchdown pass in the final period.
Collins won’t be mistaken for a fleet-footed wide receiver anytime soon, but he came through on the ad-lib play which has been a trend for the Barracudas all season.
“It was actually a broken play at the end, but we’ve gone over those and it worked for us,” Collins said.
Dubai’s other scores came on a 25-yard pass to receiver Suliman Gaouda in the first quarter, a Luke Norrey 15-yard touchdown run in the second period and a 59-yard connection between Zavier Cobb and tight end Rich Stead in the third quarter.
Defensively, the Barracudas shut down the Desert Foxes’ outside runs and unique formations with an extra blocker lined up wide in the backfield – used to leverage the skills of rugby players playing on the squad for the game.
The performance, however, was a departure from the competitive efforts in their past two games and erased some of the encouraging progress that had been made.
“We took a step back,” Al Ain coach Johnny Sharp said. “I was encouraged with some Fujairah rugby players that came through and we were trying to adapt American football. I thought it would have worked out a little better than it did.
“We have to get back to what we normally do.”
The two teams will run it back in the first round of the playoffs next week and the approach will be no different for Barracudas coach Kyle Jordan, who said: “To us, in the playoffs everyone has the same record. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we’re going to come out and play hard football.”
In the earlier game, the Dubai Stallions forfeited to give the Abu Dhabi Wildcats the victory.
