For the first time in UAE rugby, Dubai’s leading clubs will start a new season by glancing enviously down the coast and wondering how to go about breaking Abu Dhabi’s trophy duopoly.
Rugby’s power base has shifted. Thursday night’s Capital Cup tie will pit the UAE Premiership and Dubai Sevens holders, Abu Dhabi Harlequins, against the cross-border champions Saracens at Zayed Sports City. Never before have two sides from the capital hoarded all the major titles between them.
The plush playing fields just outside the national stadium are a fitting venue for such a tussle, but it might not always be so.
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Hosts Harlequins were given notice this summer that they may have to look for a new home once their tenancy contract at Sports City ends in 2017.
Andy Cole, the chairman, is confident they will not be evicted any time soon, but he is conscious of the need to secure a new, long-term partnership for the good of the club.
“I have always been looking for longevity for the club,” Cole said. “It is always going to be difficult in the Middle East.
“It is never going to be the same as the UK, or anywhere else in the world, in terms of land ownership.”
In a country where costs of playing rugby are high and all are tenants rather than landowners, each club treads a precarious line just to function.
This season, there is an added administrative demand. Jebel Ali Dragons are believed to be the only club so far to have secured the trade licence newly mandated by the UAE Rugby Federation.
Despite the off-field unease, expectations on the field remain high. Both Abu Dhabi squads are broadly similar to those which won trophies last season.
Perhaps the most notable new arrival is, in fact, the return of a familiar face. Luke Stevenson was outstanding as fly-half for Harlequins when he was in Abu Dhabi for a season on a university work placement in 2012/13.
He has since graduated from his construction management studies, taken up a job with Vogue Fitness on Yas Island and settled back into the Harlequins side after a year away.
“It was like I had never left,” Stevenson said. “Obviously there are a lot of new boys, but the atmosphere is exactly the same.
“A few of the older lads aren’t around anymore, but the core are, so it was easy to settle back in.”
Saracens have harnessed the transience of life in the Middle East to great effect in their short history, often using short-term player loans from their global network to benefit the team. Even before this season started, though, they have fallen victim to impermanence.
As winners of the West Asia play-off at the end of last season, they might have anticipated being able to refer to themselves as the leading club in the region for a whole year.
That chance was taken away, though, when Asia Rugby introduced a new, season-opening Champions League competition for the region.
Now Doha, as the first victors of that event last Friday, can rightly class themselves as No 1.
Judging by their dominant display in Friday’s finale, against a well-supported Kandy side in Dubai, the Qatar-based team will set the benchmark for everyone this season.
pradley@thenational.ae
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