Jebel Ali Dragons climbed off the bottom of the West Asia Premiership as they won for the first time this season following previous back-to-back defeats.
Dragons beat Dubai Knights Eagles 38-20 in an entertaining game to move on to six points after three games, moving level with Dubai Hurricanes after their defeat in Bahrain.
“I’m pleased for the boys. They’ve been training well and working hard,” said Dragons head coach Colin Phillips.
“What we’ve been working on was evident in large spells. Eagles never gave up and kept the pressure on us.”
With their first win on the board, Phillips insists the club want to back up this result in their next three games – they face Dubai Exiles, Canes and Bahrain before the league takes a break at the end of November for the sevens season.
“We have a physical three weeks coming that the club are looking forward to,” added Phillips.
Bahrain eased to a 35-9 win over Canes to bounce back from their maiden loss of the campaign the previous week against Exiles – who were not in action but earned a bonus point win after Abu Dhabi Harlequins were forced to forfeit their scheduled clash at Zayed Sports City because of a shortage of front-row players.
Bahrain coach Adam Wallace was happy for the reigning champions to get back to winning ways and was appreciative of a traveling Canes side depleted by injury.
Wallace said: “We went well. We managed to execute our game plan a lot better than we did against Exiles and we saw the benefit from that.
“They were struggling with injuries and lads unable to travel, but regardless they fulfilled the fixture which was really important so I appreciate that massively.”
There was a massive furore ahead of the weekend’s action, with Quins begrudgingly forfeiting their fixture with Exiles as the two could not agree on a postponement and league chiefs Gulf Rugby not having a protocol in place for insufficient front row numbers.
Exiles were awarded a 31-0 victory and five-point bonus win, while in addition Quins were docked two points for the forfeit.
West Asia Premiership results:
Bahrain 35 Dubai Hurricanes 9
Jebel Ali Dragons 38 Dubai Knights Eagles 20
Abu Dhabi Harlequins v Dubai Exiles (forfeited by Harlequins)
