Philippines and Rugby League

Posted by druzik on Feb 7th, 2012 in Domestic, International, Rugby League | 19 comments

By Greg Cross

The Philippines Rugby League was founded by John Smith at RLIF on facebook. He designed the logo and gave us the name Carabos. He asked for volunteers on facebook on a site now called Philippines National Rugby League.

I , an ex Sea Eagles player and schoolteacher volunteered as manager. Clayton Watene, Norths Devils coach was appointed head coach. Mark De Ubago was appointed assistant coach. He coaches at Camden Rams. Michael Holt from Newcastle Souths is Media Officer and Rick Elephant is co-manager. Rick Hartley is Development Officer in the Philippines.

Last November we only has 6 players and things were looking grim but we were determined to get a team for Cabramatta 9s. We had to order our jumpers by the end of that month. Amazingly we registered nine players in a week and we had the money to buy jumpers. Now we have over 30 players on our books ranging from 70kg to 120kg. All players are league players and some have played for Philippines Rugby Union. Five players are in the Queensland Cup and paid their own way down to Sydney and the others are from NSW.

Luke Srama our hooker has a brother who plays for Titans in NRL . Kevin Gordon also playing for the Titans Is Filipino heritage. We have two Filipino heritage players in the Toyota Cup. All of our players have Filipino heritage. We met at Cabramatta the day before the 9s and trained there.

We are planning international games against Thailand and Japan. There is a Clark 9s tournament planned in Angeles City Philippines on October 27th.

Our team proved very competitive at Cabramatta giving Fiji a tough game before losing 12/4. Against a powerful Niue team we drew 16/16. In the quarter final we defeated Portugal 20/0. In the exciting bowl final we won against Burwood 22/18.

This Cabramatta tournament has kick started our bid for the 2017 World Cup. We have met with Tas bateri and intend to start a domestic competition in the Philippines this year. Rick Hartley who started Rugby Union in the Philippines will work for us now. The pleasing thing was all the support from the Filipino Community including the Consular general who was at the game. Reporters from Filipino media were there as well.