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The Bahrain Rugby Football Club (RFC) select XV once again retained the DHL Memorial Trophy last weekend thanks to a commanding victory over the DHL Barbarians.
Held annually to honour the memories of DHL employees Jason Bresler, David Giles and Mohammed Shafiq who were killed in Afghanistan in 2008, the event has become one of the focal points of the club’s calendar and the traditional send-off to the season.
Looking for a first ever outright win in the fixture, the Barbarians side was once again made up of DHL employees from around the Middle East, along with some additional ringers from within the Bahrain ranks, and was captained for the fifth successive year by former Bahrain and Arabian Gulf number eight Phil Armatage.
The Bahrain side, made up predominantly of the club’s first XV that competed in this year’s Gulf Top Six competition, was after a fourth win in five years, with the only blot on their otherwise 100 per cent winning streak being the 19-19 draw back in 2010.
Somewhat surprisingly, it was the strong DHL contingent watching from the sidelines who had the most to shout about early on as Bahrain prop Rich Muncaster became the first player in the history of the game of rugby to be sin-binned in a charity game in Bahrain after he had something of a disagreement with the referee.
Things got worse for the hosts soon after when the mercurial and some-time Bahrain back-rower Rich Stephens crashed over from a well-worked driving maul to give the Barbarians the lead.
Having barely played together for the last two months, the Bahrain side lacked some of their usual precision and accuracy but they eventually hit back with a try from number eight Tom Jankowski.
Things weren’t coming easy for the hosts, however, and they had to work hard for any gains against some heroic defending from the Barbarians.
They did manage to notch up two further scores through centre Adam Wallace, on a week’s trial with the club, and Jankowski again, to give them a lead of 17-5 at the break.
Both sides rang the changes for the second half and the impact of the likes of Jason Vine and the returning Nabeel Hijris for Bahrain and Ollie Hunt, briefly, for DHL, appeared to see the game open up considerably.
The hosts pulled away with tries from skipper Tom Ham, winger Ifhaam Isphahani and the departing Jack Ward, while Forrester was quite rightly denied his first ever try for Bahrain for a blatant forward pass in the build-up.
One of the highlights of the game was provided by 16-year-old Bahrain Colts’ centre Remy Officer, who capped off an impressive performance for the Barbarians with a cracking try down the left.
The best was saved until last, however, as Tom Hanratty, pulled out of retirement for his first game in a year and playing through a debilitating injury, picked a superb support line off Luke Radley and scorched over from 40m for a scintillating finish to put some gloss on the 41-10 final scoreline for Bahrain.
Following the close of play, attendees were treated to live music from Revival as well as a bumper raffle, the proceeds of which are to be donated to local charities at the request of the families of Mr Bresler, Mr Giles and Mr Shafiq.
