The Philippine Rugby Football Union has named the 34-man squad that will train for the upcoming Asian 5 Nations Division 1 Championships  to be held in Rizal Stadium, Manila on April 15-21, 2012.

For the third year in a row, the PRFU has selected a squad composed entirely of Filipino heritage players. Retained in the core group are a number of seasoned campaigners along with 5 debutants elevated to the national squad. These include forwards Mat Bellenie, James Neilson, Jake Ward and Steve Howorth along with utility player Brian West. Head Coach Expo Mejia feels confident he has the squad capable of winning the Division 1 Championships.

Mejia said, “It is never an easy thing to pick a national squad as you always leave behind quality players, but I feel this is the best combination we could come up with. We certainly have the depth to win Division 1 and the challenge will be to play 3 matches in 7 days.” Captain Michael Letts who has just finished the season with the Toyota team in Japan was excited by the influx of new talent. “It will certainly sharpen the competitive edge at training as we’ll all be fighting hard to grab a starting spot on the team,” remarked Letts.

Key players Gareth Holgate, Joven Clark, Fred Morris and Nick Pineda were all unavailable and veteran Josh Sutcliffe has recently announced his retirement from international rugby. “I would like to single out Josh for his tremendous loyalty and service to the Volcanoes over the years. He has had an outstanding career and is an inspiration to the entire squad both on and off the field,” said Coach Mejia.

The squad will assemble in Manila on Sunday April 8 to begin a weeklong training camp. The final squad of 24 players will be announced before the competition. The Volcanoes will face Singapore on April 15, Chinese Taipei on April 18 and Sri Lanka on April 21. Ticket information will be released shortly by the PRFU.

The Philippine National Men's 15s team has enjoyed much success since it began competing in the Asian 5 Nations -- Asia's premier Rugby Union Tournament. The team has managed to top its division and win promotion for three consecutive years, starting in Division 4 in 2008 and climbing to Division 1 in 2011. If the Volcanoes win Division 1, the Philippines will be promoted to the Elite Division in 2013 to compete with Rugby powerhouses Japan, Hong Kong. Kazakhstan and United Arab Emirates. For more information on the Asian 5 Nations, visit  http://asian5nations.com/

The 2012 Volcanoes A5N squad:

Forwards: 
Phil Abraham, JC Bautista, Mat Bellenie, Terry Carroll, Austin Dacanay, Michael de Guzman, Michael Duhig, Kit Guerra, Chris Hitch, Chris Hettell, Steve Howorth, James Neilson, Tyler Perez, Nick Perry, Darran Seeto, Richard Taylor, Josh Tolentino, Jaime Urquijo, Jake Ward

Backs: 
Justin Coveney, Chris Everingham, Cleo Gomez, Jake Letts, Michael Letts, Joe Matthews, Luke Matthews, Jon Morales, Harry Morris, Patrice Olivier, James Price, Matt Saunders, Oliver Saunders, Kenny Stern, Brian West

Management: 
Expo Mejia (Head Coach),  Jarred Hodges (Assistant Coach), Matt Cullen (Manager), Damian Raper (Physiotherapist)

The GLOBE PRFU 7s finals were held at the Nomads sports club last Saturday and nine men’s teams arrived to battle for the Cup and Plate Trophies. In the Cup Division we saw the Alabang Eagles and Ibons, Manila Hapons, MAAP Warriors and Manila Nomads while the Plate division saw the introduction of the new “All Filipino league” with the Globe Immortals, Raging Bison, Vipers and Tarsiers all entering teams in the their first PRFU league finals campaign.

CUP DIVISION

The day began with a round-robin play off in each division.  All games were going according to plan until the Alabang Ibons met the Nomads in the Cup Semi-Final. The Ibons had obviously been practicing the 7s game and came out firing against their larger Nomads opponents. The game was fiercely competitive with Jon Morales and Saki Tuisolia forcing the Ibons to make several strong tackles.  It was 7 – 7 with two minutes remaining on the clock, before Chris Everingham broke through the Nomads defense and linked up with David Carman to score the try of the day that lead the Ibons to a final against their club A team, the Eagles.

The cup final was then played between the Alabang Eagles and the Alabang Ibons and it was the club’s premier team who proved too strong for the Ibons.  With National Team players like Tim Bweheni, Andrew Wolff and Eric Tai the Eagles ran out easy winners by 28-7. Tim Bweheni was named the Cup Division “Most Valuable Player” as he again displayed that he possesses some natural talent in the game of Rugby 7s.

PLATE DIVISION

The Plate Division was a battle royal with the four new Filipino clubs playing and training at PhilSports Stadium for the last 2 months to prepare for the Plate Finals. The Tarsiers played the Vipers for third and forth positions and after two games the Tarsiers won the third place on for- and-against tally of 22 points for 10 points against. This left the Globe Immortals to play the Plate Final against their fierce opponents, the Bison in a match which proved to be closest game of all the finals. 

The Globe Immortals were led by Wilson Caisip who has been one of the strongmen of the newly formed club and he rallied the Globe team to take the game to the Bisons. The Bison certainly did not lie down and stunned the more fancied Globe team with some bone crushing tackles as the score remained 0 – 0 for the first five minutes. 

It was National Development team representative player, Jay Coronel who finally broke the dead lock and busted through the Bison’s defense to score a great individual try, the only one scored in the first half.

The second half proved just as tight as the first, until the last minute of the game when the Bison decided to attack from their own 10 meter line.  A gap opened, and the Bison scored a 90 meter try to get back in the game. They only needed to convert the kick to draw the match and take it into overtime, unfortunately they missed the conversion and the final siren rang with the Globe Immortals scrapping home to win the inaugural Globe PRFU 7s Plate final by 7 – 5. Jay Coronel was named the Plate Division “Most Valuable Player”

The PRFU intend on running three elite leagues in 2012 that include:

PRFU 10s League (Jan, Feb, March)
PRFU 15s League (April, May, June)
PRFU 7s League Rd 1 (August, Sept)
PRFU 7s League Rd 2 (Oct, Nov)

Congratulations to all the teams that played in the PRFU leagues in 2011 and we all look forward to a competitive season in 2012.