Dubai Exiles eeked out a hard-fought victory against Jebel Ali Dragons on the opening day of the new season, with a late try from captain Glenn Moore sealing the points.
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For new Exiles director of rugby Jacques Benade and Dragons’ new head coach Bruce Pendrey, both only in the UAE for less than three months, it was the quality of the UAE Premiership stood out on opening night.
It was nip and tuck throughout a gruelling 80 minutes of rugby at 7he Sevens, Moore’s try 10 minutes from time and a late red card for Jebel Ali’s Nick Taylor eventually seeing the hosts through to the win.
Exiles are almost entirely unrecognisable from last season, new South African fly-half Durandt Gerber kicking three penalties in the first half against an unconverted try for Dragons scored by the returning Imad Reyal.
After Gerber was sin-binned early in the second half for a dangerous tackle in mid air, Exiles weathered a storm from Dragons, and Jebel Ali’s Andy Russell could have closed the gap to a point but his 35-metre penalty struck a post.
The try came with Dragons down to 14, captain Ross Samson shown yellow for ill-discipline and from a lightening break by exciting fullback Ryan Rapello minutes later, Exiles got the crucial score. Rapello’s kick and chase forced an error from Jebel Ali replacement Brian Elvis and from the resulting kick to touch and lineout, good hands from flanker Matt Mills sent Moore over.
In a combative and often bad tempered match, Taylor was given his marching orders at the death, while Exiles’ Steven Ferguson also saw yellow.
“From the first game I think you can see there’s a good standard of rugby, no doubt about it,” said former Emerging Springbok standoff Benade.
“There was a lot of humidity and there were a few too many handling errors from the boys. We couldn’t really get our phases going but we stuck in really hard.
“For the first game the result is always the most important thing. We’ve got two home games then four away games and we’ve got a lot to work on.
“Our lineout didn’t really function correctly apart from when we scored the try, which was a really slick move, but I thought our scrum was very positive.
“I know it’s only the first game but to get a good result like this gives us hope.” Pendrey was pleased with the effort of his side but believes Dragons still have work to do.
“It’s obviously a great league and I think we’ve still got a bit to do, but I thought it was a really solid performance from the boys,” said the 26-year-old, who also turned out for Dragons’ seconds earlier in the day.
“These things happen, we’ll draw a line under it and get back to training Monday morning.”
