S'pore rise to Asia's top tier

Singapore's Under-19 rugby team will compete at the top rung of the Asian Rugby Football Union (ARFU) tournament, alongside South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Sri Lanka.

They were promoted to Division One after a resounding 22-5 win over Thailand in a play-off final in Manila yesterday.

Singapore pulled ahead in the second half, courtesy of tries from Lachlan Brock, Adriel Toh and Sam Koh. Fly-half Halcyon Price was also perfect with his kicks, notching three conversions and a penalty.

Captain Malcolm Samuel said: "We are delighted with the win and the job we had set out to do, which was to get to the top of Asian U-19 rugby."

The Republic, led by head coach Hadizan Jaaman and assisted by national players Ashraf Nasser and Gaspar Tan, had beaten the Philippines 28-7 in Wednesday's semi-final.

The promotion to the first division of the four-tier series guarantees Singapore's place in qualifiers for the Junior World Rugby Trophy in 2016.

Singapore Rugby Union president Low Teo Ping said: "This shows we have a good pipeline in place. We have shown our ability to be competitive in the 15s game in Asia with our young rising stars."

This article was first published on Dec 14, 2014.
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