Al Ain Amblers will have to quickly adapt to the unforgiving environment of the UAE Premiership. The Conference it most certainly is not.
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The men from the Garden City flourished on their Premiership bow for 50 minutes against Dubai Hurricanes on Friday night before a wave of yellow cards saw them gobbled up by Canes’ storming second-half display, the hosts winning 32-14.
In the end a bonus point victory for Canes saw them ease into life without departed head coach Ross Mills with his assistant from last season and previous head coach James Ham delighted with the result, which he admitted was aided by the second half introductions of Andy Powell, Ollie Turton and Lyndsay Fitzgerald.
“It’s a bonus point win so we can’t complain, you want to be walking away from every game with that,” said Ham. “The changes made the difference but we had put the hard graft in before that. The boys had done the dog work in the first half and then when we were a bit more direct we hurt them and the new lads could open them up and the fresh pace certainly helped.”
The first-half had been a tight and scrappy affair, the opening quarter passing by without any excitement. The hosts rectified that when good hands out wide from winger James Curran saw new signing Gary Challis barge over for the opening try. Ross O’Loughlin added the extras but Al Ain were level minutes later, despite seeing Vilikesa Varawa sent to the sin-bin.
The try had begun with them defending a scrum on their own five metre line, scrum-half Watisoni Vatunitu forcing the error from Canes and making 30 metres.
From the resulting ruck, Sakiusa Naisau found a gap to sprint unopposed to the line, Frederick Karl Holdt given the simplest of tasks to square the scores.
Replacements Powell and Turton combined after the break to send the latter in for the hosts’ second try, New Zealander Powell converting, but back came Al Ain, winger Shane Nally touching down five minutes later and Holdt again tying the scores. That was as good as it got for the visitors though.
After No8 Siri Laladidi was yellow-carded on the stroke of half time, three more Amblers were sent to the bin in the second half as disciplinary issues reared its ugly head; Andrew Walker, John Buxman and Daryl Johnson all then crossing to secure a perfect start for Canes.
Although they matched Canes with 15 men on the field, Ham believes their lack of discipline could be Amblers’ downfall.
“Four of five yellow cards for them means they’re not coping with the standard,” Ham said. “They stepped up well but there’s probably something going wrong if they’re getting that many cards.”
Ham, however, does believe the title race could be a battle between all six sides. He added: “Certainly that could be the case. Would you have said last season that Exiles would turn over Dragons?
“No one will walk away from Al Ain with an easy victory so it’s going to be a hard competition and it could be very, very close.”
