Mike Ballard shown at Friday's Conquistadors foundation team training session. Reem Mohammed / The National / June 10, 2016
Mike Ballard shown at Friday's Conquistadors foundation team training session. Reem Mohammed / The National / June 10, 2016
Mike Ballard shown at Friday's Conquistadors foundation team training session. Reem Mohammed / The National / June 10, 2016
Mike Ballard shown at Friday's Conquistadors foundation team training session. Reem Mohammed / The National / June 10, 2016

Gulf rugby side ready for ‘serious’ Madagascar match and contributing goodwill


Paul Radley
  • English
  • Arabic

DUBAI // The majority of the region’s rugby players are enjoying a well-earned off-season break at present. The most strenuous exercise many will be undertaking will be reaching for the TV remote control, flicking through the channels to find the mid-year internationals.

Not everyone, though. Early Friday morning, a scratch squad of players quickly forging new friendships, not to mention attempting to create some semblance of playing understanding, were running shuttles up and down the Dubai Sports City rugby field.

It was the first and last chance they will have to get together to train before they face the world’s No 41 ranked side, Madagascar, in three weeks’ time.

The Air Seychelles Mike Ballard Foundation Conquistadors are made up of players from eight clubs from the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.

They leave for a tour to the African nation later this month, where they will be taking medical equipment, wheelchairs and rugby kit.

A goodwill excursion it may be, but the players face a daunting task on the pitch, too. The side they will be playing against are ranked 32 places above the full UAE national team in the world standings.

With over 22,000 registered players, rugby is the national sport in Madagascar, meaning the tourists will have their work cut out.

“They will be doing a Haka before the match,” Winston Cowie, the player-manager and forwards coach, said.

“Many of our boys haven’t faced one of them before, so that’s incredibly exciting. A crowd of about 20,000 are expected for the match.”

For the home nation, the match against the invitational touring side is a key part of their preparations for their 2016 Test programme.

Ed Lewsey, one of a small group of Conquistadors players who also travelled to Uzbekistan with the UAE last month for the Asian Rugby Championship campaign, said the side are not overawed by the task ahead.

“The team we are playing are serious, a national side, who will be very good, so we have had to recruit well,” said Lewsey, the Conquistadors scrum half and backs coach.

“We have got some of the best players in the Gulf, and we have had a training session to get a bit of organisation. We feel we are going to be prepared for a great game.”

The Conquistadors first formed in order to play at the 2015 Dubai Rugby Sevens, with the sole purpose of supporting the Mike Ballard Foundation.

Ballard, who was paralysed in an accident while playing a domestic match in Abu Dhabi in 2014, is now back working in the capital.

The foundation was initially set up to cover the costs of his rehabilitation, but he is now keen to redirect the funds to other causes.

“Abu Dhabi Harlequins and the entire Gulf rugby region really came together to support me,” said Ballard, after overseeing Friday’s training session.

“They raised a bunch of money to get me through my rehab so I was able to take a year and a half off and not worry about anything on the financial side. That was amazing.

“Now I’m back here, we realised we had all this in place, all these people who want to get involved and help. I’m back out, living on my own, independent, working, driving, so where can we go from here?

“That is when we shifted from trying to raise money to support me, to looking for other projects to help other people around the world.”

pradley@thenational.ae​

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UAE v Gibraltar

What: International friendly

When: 7pm kick off

Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City

Admission: Free

Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page

UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)

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Brief scoreline:

Liverpool 5

Keita 1', Mane 23', 66', Salah 45' 1, 83'

Huddersfield 0

Series info

Test series schedule 1st Test, Abu Dhabi: Sri Lanka won by 21 runs; 2nd Test, Dubai: Play starts at 2pm, Friday-Tuesday

ODI series schedule 1st ODI, Dubai: October 13; 2nd ODI, Abu Dhabi: October 16; 3rd ODI, Abu Dhabi: October 18; 4th ODI, Sharjah: October 20; 5th ODI, Sharjah: October 23

T20 series schedule 1st T20, Abu Dhabi: October 26; 2nd T20, Abu Dhabi: October 27; 3rd T20, Lahore: October 29

Tickets Available at www.q-tickets.com

Stat Fourteen Fourteen of the past 15 Test matches in the UAE have been decided on the final day. Both of the previous two Tests at Dubai International Stadium have been settled in the last session. Pakistan won with less than an hour to go against West Indies last year. Against England in 2015, there were just three balls left.

Key battle - Azhar Ali v Rangana Herath Herath may not quite be as flash as Muttiah Muralitharan, his former spin-twin who ended his career by taking his 800th wicket with his final delivery in Tests. He still has a decent sense of an ending, though. He won the Abu Dhabi match for his side with 11 wickets, the last of which was his 400th in Tests. It was not the first time he has owned Pakistan, either. A quarter of all his Test victims have been Pakistani. If Pakistan are going to avoid a first ever series defeat in the UAE, Azhar, their senior batsman, needs to stand up and show the way to blunt Herath.

MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-final:

First leg: Liverpool 5 Roma 2

Second leg: Wednesday, May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome

TV: BeIN Sports, 10.45pm (UAE)

Roger Federer's record at Wimbledon

Roger Federer's record at Wimbledon

1999 - 1st round

2000 - 1st round

2001 - Quarter-finalist

2002 - 1st round

2003 - Winner

2004 - Winner

2005 - Winner

2006 - Winner

2007 - Winner

2008 - Finalist

2009 - Winner

2010 - Quarter-finalist

2011 - Quarter-finalist

2012 - Winner

2013 - 2nd round

2014 - Finalist

2015 - Finalist

2016 - Semi-finalist

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
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  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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A ancient classical dance from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Intricate footwork and expressions are used to denote spiritual stories and ideas.

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Date started: January 2017
Founder: Khaled Zaatarah 
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The bio

Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Favourite travel destination: Maldives and south of France

Favourite pastime: Family and friends, meditation, discovering new cuisines

Favourite Movie: Joker (2019). I didn’t like it while I was watching it but then afterwards I loved it. I loved the psychology behind it.

Favourite Author: My father for sure

Favourite Artist: Damien Hurst

Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
Rating: 4/5
Key facilities
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  • Premier League-standard football pitch
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  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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  • Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
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4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon

- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.

50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater

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1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.

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Can NRIs vote in the election?

Indians residing overseas cannot cast their ballot abroad

Non-resident Indians or NRIs can vote only by going to a polling booth in their home constituency

There are about 3.1 million NRIs living overseas

Indians have urged political parties to extend the right to vote to citizens residing overseas

A committee of the Election Commission of India approved of proxy voting for non-resident Indians

Proxy voting means that a person can authorise someone residing in the same polling booth area to cast a vote on his behalf.

This option is currently available for the armed forces, police and government officials posted outside India

A bill was passed in the lower house of India’s parliament or the Lok Sabha to extend proxy voting to non-resident Indians

However, this did not come before the upper house or Rajya Sabha and has lapsed

The issue of NRI voting draws a huge amount of interest in India and overseas

Over the past few months, Indians have received messages on mobile phones and on social media claiming that NRIs can cast their votes online

The Election Commission of India then clarified that NRIs could not vote online

The Election Commission lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police asking it to clamp down on the people spreading misinformation