DUBAI // When a former professional who has played in some of the biggest arenas in rugby says the UAE Premiership final is “as big as it gets” here, it could mean one of two things.
Either he is over it already and would prefer to be somewhere else, or that he is just as amped about playing as he has been for any other fixture that has gone before.
Happily for Abu Dhabi Harlequins, Jeremy Manning’s sentiments regarding tonight’s grand final against Dubai Hurricanes are definitely the latter.
The Quins player-coach has been there, done that, got the Youtube video.
In a previous posting, he was part of Munster’s victorious squad for the 2006 Heineken Cup final, a game watched by 75,000 people in Cardiff. The New Zealander also has faced down the haka, the Maori war dance, when playing for Munster against the All Blacks in 2008.
Yet he still anticipates having “butterflies in my stomach” before running out against the Hurricanes at The Sevens on Friday night.
“From my personal point of view, yes, I’ve been lucky enough to play in a few pretty big, awesome games, but I feel the same way about every game,” Manning said.
“It doesn’t matter if it is against the Dragons or the Hurricanes in the final, or a pre-season game, I approach it the same. I am looking forward to it.”
It says how much this game means to Manning, whose club have lost five major finals in two seasons, that he was even angry at times this week.
The affable playmaker rarely seems upset by anything, but he termed UAE rugby's decision to prevent Adel Al Hendi playing for Quins in the final "ridiculous".
Clearly the passion still runs deep for him, even if the stakes are lower than at times in the past.
“I think the day that you don’t get nervous is the day you should hang up your boots,” he said.
“I still get butterflies in my stomach no matter what game it is, whether it be a pre-season game, a sevens game or the UAE Premiership final. The day you don’t get that is the day you should stop.”
Both sides have demons to exorcise tonight.
Harlequins may have lost five of the six major finals to Dragons during the past two seasons, but it was Hurricanes who were beaten in this corresponding fixture last year.
The severity of the defeat back then, at Jebel Ali’s Centre of Excellence, seemed to have a detrimental effect for the rest of the campaign. Hurricanes were nothing like as competitive in the Gulf Top Six that followed.
However, Daniel Perry, the new Hurricanes’ captain, believes his in-form side are capable of settling that score tonight.
“Our goal was always to get to the final, and now we are in it, to win the final,” Perry said.
“We are there now and it is going to be hard. We beat Quins by just a point” in the regular league season “and were let off when they missed a last minute.
“We have a brilliant set of backs. Our forwards can do the dirty work, but when our backs throw the ball around we’d back them to score every single time.”
UAE sevens also in action at tournament in Al Ain
Roelof Kotze, the UAE performance manager, hopes the local community will come to Al Ain Amblers rugby club this weekend to support the national sevens team.
The UAE are playing in a competition for developing Asian rugby nations, which represents the bottom rung of the qualification process for the Olympics, in the Garden City.
The national team need to succeed in this tournament to remain as one of the core sides in the Asian Sevens Series next year.
The all-Emirati home side will likely face tough competition from the likes of Lebanon and Jordan in Al Ain, and Kotze says his players could do with some backing.
“We hope to get some local support,” he said. “It’s not often that we as a sevens side get the chance to play locally, and it will be good for rugby here. Al Ain is one of the better venues for rugby in this country, it is not that hot, and it would be good to get some support for our side.”
pradley@thenational.ae
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