Latest news with #WestAsiaSuperRugby
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
20-04-2025
- Sport
- The National
Rugby Dubai Hurricanes v Bahrain
The victorious Dubai Hurricanes team after beating Bahrain in the West Asia Super Rugby final at The Sevens, Dubai. All pictures by Ruel Pableo for The National
The National
20-04-2025
- Sport
- The National
Dubai Hurricanes crowned champions of West Asia after extraordinary comeback win over Bahrain
Dubai Hurricanes might have thought they had perfected the art of the smash-and-grab raid in stealing the UAE Premiership title from Dubai Exiles a week ago. In fact, that late, single-point comeback win against their neighbours in the domestic final constituted doing it the easy way when set against what was to follow seven days later in the cross-border equivalent. For 13 games and 78 minutes, Bahrain were the best team in regional rugby. Then the Hurricanes broke from their own 22 to score the try that gave them the West Asia Super Rugby title. They could not have timed it more perfectly. Two weekends, two finals and, amazingly, two titles, having led for a combined total of approximately 15 minutes over the course of both games. 'The biggest thing about this team in comparison to any team I have ever worked with is that they do not know when they are done,' Mike Wernham, the Hurricanes director of rugby, said after the 24-21 win. 'They just don't quit. They'd have to be 50 points down and then the ref blows the whistle for them to believe it. They just do not know when they are beaten.' Bahrain were firm favourites ahead of the game, by dint of the fact they won all 12 regular league season matches, as well as the semi-final which followed, against Abu Dhabi Harlequins. The Hurricanes, by contrast, had lost both their regular season games against their final opposition, as well as three others besides. And yet they had showed in their win against the Exiles a week earlier that they have the firepower to threaten anyone. Just as it had done against the Exiles, the form book initially rang true. Bahrain were 11-0 up, via a try for Jack Phillips and two penalties from the boot of Josh Drain. They were cruising, despite the fact Aled Morris, their blindside flanker, had been shown red for a shoulder to the head of a Hurricanes player during a melee on the Canes tryline. Despite being down to 14 men for the majority of the game, the tourists dominated the ball, and the Dubai side only got a foothold in the game thanks to a piece of brilliance from Martin Mangwiro. The tireless back rower made a break through the middle of the pitch to score from 65 metres out after Ruan Steenkamp, the Hurricanes captain, had secured a turnover. It was totally against the run of play, but again proved the Hurricanes are capable of scoring from anywhere. Bahrain edged 14-7 ahead at the start of the second half before the side in yellow shocked them again, this time with Andre Gerber bursting through to score. Bahrain, who were cheered on by a substantial travelling support, moved back into a 21-17 lead with time ticking down when Mackenzie Oliver touched down after a driving maul following a line out. There was enough time left, though, for the Hurricanes to apply the ultimate sucker punch. Again, it was Mangwiro who fashioned the opening, this time from his own 22. He offloaded just before he got to the opposition's 22, and Toby Oakeley was in support to run the ball under the posts. 'I think I can speak for all the boys by saying we could feel the momentum shift last week [in the final against the Exiles],' Mangwiro said. 'We just knew that we had to pull it through right till the very end. Even though we were down in the first half and for a bit of the second half, we knew we had that fight until the end.'
