Latest news with #DubaiExiles
The National
5 days ago
- General
- The National
Jacques Benade ends stint as Dubai Exiles coach after decade of excellence at UAE's oldest rugby club
Jacques Benade says he is 'going to miss it so badly' but added now is the right time to end his highly successful stint as head coach of Dubai Exiles. The South African has been in charge of the UAE's oldest rugby club for nine years. During that time, they have been the most consistently competitive side in the country. He took them to three West Asia Premiership finals, winning in 2017, while they also won three UAE Premiership titles on his watch, as well as the Dubai Sevens in 2017 and 2021. Benade is also the UAE coach. He is currently readying the national team for a tilt at World Cup qualification via the Asian Rugby Championship, which starts with a fixture against Hong Kong in Dubai on Saturday June 14. 'It will feel strange to sit at home on Saturday – my wife will love it, I'm sure,' Benade said of his decision to step down from the Exiles. 'It will feel strange not to see the boys but I'm sure I will be there supporting all the teams. 'I am going to miss the boys, but I do think it will be good for them to get someone new in, and rebuild, and see where we want to go. 'The club is in a good place at the moment. There are a lot of good players there, and I wish all the best to whoever is going to take over as they are good quality people.' Benade, who first started coaching when he was 31, remains in charge of rugby at Dubai College, and is grateful to coach for a living. 'It has been 25 years and this is what I love,' Benade said. 'I think I am very fortunate to be able to do something that I love every day. 'School is getting tougher, there is more competition, and rugby overall in the UAE is getting better. There are very good coaches everywhere. 'I am going to miss it so badly, but I think it is the right time. With every coach, I think they need to realise there is a time to move on and look at something different.' Typically, rugby clubs in the region have enjoyed waves of success but found it difficult to sustain over long periods of time. Dubai Hurricanes, for example, are the reigning UAE and West Asia champions after a remarkable end to last season, but two years earlier they had been playing second tier rugby. Benade himself took over an Exiles team in 2016 who had just won a double of trophies, having been on their knees not long before. I do think it will be good for them to get someone new in and rebuild Jacques Benade In 2012, the Exiles had been forced to withdraw from the top flight of domestic rugby while the season was running due to a lack of numbers. Jan Venter, Benade's predecessor as coach, got the club back on a successful footing, but he handed over a side who were again set for transition. 'I'll never forget when I first arrived and got a list of players from Jan Venter at the Exiles,' Benade said. 'I phoned them all, and finished up with 12 boys who were still playing rugby. Everybody else had just left. 'From not knowing what was going on, we started recruiting, got an unbelievably good team together, and to win the double in my first year was just immense.' It was a feature of Benade's spell at the Exiles that their standards rarely slipped, and they consistently challenged for trophies. Whether they can maintain that after he has left remains to be seen, but he believes they are a club in good health. 'We have an old team at the moment,' Benade said. 'Matt Mills [the UAE co-captain] and some of those boys started with me 10 years ago. It is unbelievable. 'They have been really good working together but it is also sometimes hard to recruit when you have a really settled team. [Other players] can't see a way in and they don't want to leave other clubs. 'Also, you work so hard, and we really wanted to go for the double this year, but we lost at the end against a Hurricanes team who just never stop playing rugby. 'But I had an unbelievable 10 years, and I absolutely love the club. It is a great club.' Jon Ebbitt, the club's former general manager, said Benade had left behind 'an incredible legacy' at the Exiles. 'Arguably Jacques' most important legacy at the club is the structure and player pathway that he implemented during his tenure as the Exiles' director of rugby,' Ebbitt said. 'Owing to [that], many Exiles' mini and youth, boys and girls, as well as men and women, have come through the pathway to represent the UAE on the international stage.' Ebbitt pointed out that, during the 2022-23 season, 34 Exiles represented the UAE at Under 18, Under 20, or senior levels in competitions across Asia. Benade said that player development has been one of the highlights of the job, while it is 'most rewarding seeing players go into coaching as well, from what they have learnt from you'.
The National
22-04-2025
- Sport
- The National
How Dubai Hurricanes unearthed a gem through Facebook and won two rugby titles
In the race to become the best side in West Asia rugby, there is a good reason Dubai Hurricanes were able to outlast everyone else. Namely, Martin Mangwiro. The Dubai club celebrated their 25th anniversary season by completing the UAE Premiership and West Asia Super Rugby double on Saturday night. They did so in remarkable fashion. A week earlier, they had overturned a substantial deficit to beat Dubai Exiles to the domestic title. Seven days later, they left their comeback even tighter to pinch the regional crown from Bahrain at the very last. The touring side had won all 13 matches leading into Saturday's final, and held the lead with two minutes left. Then Mangwiro set off on yet another lung-bursting run from near his own line, offloaded at just the right time, leaving Toby Oakeley to score the try that won Hurricanes the title. It was the second time he had made a vital impact on the match. In the first half, Bahrain had been dominant before Mangwiro made a 65-metre break up the middle of the field to get the Hurricanes their opening try. To celebrate Oakeley's winning score, Mangwiro then sprinted all the way back down the field even faster, wagging his finger at his clubmates who were on the sideline. Meanwhile, everyone else was on their knees: the Bahrain players, broken with despair, the Hurricanes ones, spent with effort. Mangwiro's nickname is well earned. 'A lot of people, and this is going all the way back to South Africa, called me the 'Kenyan Runner',' Mangwiro said. 'I never stop running. I am always busy, always active, and – as I always say – built different.' It is fair to say Mangwiro, who also plays netball and ran a half-marathon in February, is built very different to the standard back row forward. When he first turned up at the Hurricanes three years ago, the coaches thought he had got lost when he went to train with the forwards rather than the backs. He was only training with them at all because of chance. He was new to the country from Johannesburg, and had messaged Mike Wernham, the club's director of rugby, on Facebook to ask if he could come and try out. 'The message said, 'I'm new from South Africa, I fancy playing some rugby, but I haven't got any rugby shorts. Is there any chance I can come down?'' Wernham said. 'I said, 'Yep, just bring any shorts you've got.' He did his first training session in swimming shorts, and look at him now. He is arguably the best No 6 or 7 in the country. It is completely out of luck.' There was a reason Mangwiro did not have any kit. 'My girlfriend at the time didn't want me to play rugby, so she had thrown my boots and rugby stuff away,' Mangwiro said. 'I didn't have any rugby shorts. I turned up for training at the Canes on my first day in swimming shorts and no rugby boots. 'As small as I am now, I was smaller then when I started with them. They split the backs and forwards, and I went with the forwards. 'They said, 'Sorry, mate, the backline is over there.' I said, 'I'm actually a forward.' That is how my journey started with them.' Coincidentally, Mangwiro joined the club at around the same time as another loose forward from the same part of the world as him – Ruan Steenkamp. In the time since, which has seen Hurricanes rise from the second tier of domestic rugby to the very top of West Asia, they have formed a formidable partnership in the back row. For example, it was Steenkamp who picked Bahrain's pocket to set Mangwiro off and running for their opening try on Saturday night. Steenkamp, now 32, had once captained a South Africa Under 20s side that included future World Cup winners like Cheslin Kolbe and Handre Pollard. He also had an impressive professional career before moving to the UAE, but Mangwiro said he was blissfully unaware of all that before meeting him. 'I didn't know who Ruan was at all,' Mangwiro said. 'It was only from being part of the Hurricanes team and everyone saying, 'That's Ruan Steenkamp,' that I did my research on him. 'I looked and thought, 'Oh, wow. He's a big shot.' We've got used to each other playing side to side with each other over the past three years. 'I've got to know how he plays, how he works around the corner, and he understands that, 'Martin will always be there; I can just throw the ball, and he'll catch it and go'.' Wernham says Mangwiro was an ideal addition to a Hurricanes side who were trying to lay the platform for success when he arrived back in 2022. 'The guy's engine is absolutely insane,' Wernham said. 'His heart is why every club knows him. He is such a loveable guy, and he is absolutely loved by us. 'Since he arrived, we have supported him, helped him out here and there by finding him a job, and he loves this country. 'He also loves this club, and we are very happy to have him. That is just how life works sometimes.' The recruitment of the likes of Mangwiro and Steenkamp, not to mention coaching staff of the calibre of Henry Paul and Evan Buekes, has fast-forwarded the club's grand ambitions. Wernham said he had a five-year plan to reach the West Asia Super Rugby final. They won it within three. 'There are some lads that were with us when we were down in Div 1 who have just stuck to it,' Wernham said. 'They have believed in the process and the club. I have been trying to do this for nine years now, and this is the first time we have made the final, let alone won it. 'We had a chance when Covid hit. Whether we would have won I don't know. We just had such confidence in this team because they are a squad with so much love and brotherhood that surrounds them. They are a credit to the club.'
The National
13-04-2025
- Sport
- The National
Rugby finals
Action from the the UAE Premiership final between Dubai Exiles (black) v Dubai Hurricanes (yellow) held at The Sevens in Dubai. All pictures by Pawan Singh for The National.
