Younger, fitter Dubai Exiles in defining victory over Abu Dhabi Saracens

Exiles have one of the youngest teams in the UAE Premiership, and it showed, writes Paul Radley.

DUBAI // A long-range try and two longer-distance penalties by the UAE full-back Charlie Sargent laid the platform for a valuable win for Dubai Exiles over Abu Dhabi Saracens on Friday.

Despite this being the opening game of the season, the 25-23 victory could go a significant way to deciding where these two sides will play their rugby for the rest of this competition.

Recent history suggests the Exiles, Saracens and Xodus Wasps Dubai will be vying for the fourth place in the Premiership, which is also the last berth in the elite, cross-border, Gulf Top Six competition that follows.

It had seemed certain Saracens would be stealing a march on their rivals when they steamrollered their way to an early 13-0 lead.

As the play became increasingly broken, though, the speedy Exiles backline sparked a rousing comeback, with tries coming via Sargent, Michael Stubbs and Ed Armitage.

“We were a bit overwhelmed at the start, they controlled the game and we are only young guys,” said Xander van der Westhuizen, the Exiles captain. “Our average age is only around 23, but I think that helped us in the end as we seemed a little fitter than the other side.

“To come back like that when we didn’t see the ball for the first 27 minutes was a great effort.”

Alistair Thompson, the player-coach of the away side, said his team paid for the lack of game time they had together in ­pre-season.

“We were coasting, then we switched off for five minutes and you can’t do that against a backline like Exiles have got,” Thompson said.

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