THIS year, Muslim members of Club are not taking a break from the game as they have been turning up for training sessions and playing on Saturdays which shows their commitment.

There were enough players last week for a 12-a-side game with three guests from England joining in the game — one of them was William, a nephew of Dick, Club’s president.

They are here for a short holiday, and last week was their first experience of playing rugby in Kuching.

A number of Swinburne players also turned up although a few faces from the previous week were missing. This is the first time Club is carrying on playing during Ramadhan, and the turnout has been encouraging so far.

In years past, the game had always taken a break for the fasting month but Yusop, Club’s veep and coach, decided the weekly games and training sessions would go on this year.

Although the turnout has been encouraging so far for the fasting month, the only gripe I have is apart from one or two faces, the rest seem to be turning up on alternate weekends which is quite perplexing to me.

I can’t fathom the reason for this because I remember during my early years with Club, the players would turn up every week punctually to ensure they got a run-out as part of the starting XV’s, but nowadays that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Guess it is a sign of the times — which reminds me of a song by Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-changing.

Nowadays, the players pick and choose when they want to come, and what time they will turn up — so now, one will not see the same faces except for one or two, every weekend.

Some even show up only once a month, or they will turn up to watch proceedings before going somewhere else as they are still early for their appointment.

The only regulars are Noel, Zainuddin (Airod), Dick, Yusop, Alfred and Aszpha. A former regular who has not been seen for a while is Louis Simon who used to drive down from Sarikei on Fridays but apparently is now busy with his work there.

Then, of course, there are the others who will only show their face a week or two before a tournament when they want to be in the Club squad.

Mostly it’s 11 or 12-a-side during the weekends and on the very rare occasion will there be a full game, and usually, the referee does not have the luxury of touch judges to assist him during these weekly games as the numbers present are all playing or those who are not playing do not want to run the lines, preferring to sit in the shade and watch proceedings while waiting for their turn to join the game.

I received word just last weekend from Timothy L in Miri that the Annual Baram Trophy this year has been scheduled for Nov 8-9, slightly over a month away.

This year will be the 25th edition of this venerable tournament, one of the fixtures on local rugby calendar. And apparently, Miri DRU is pulling out all the stops to make this year’s event a humdinger to celebrate the momentous occasion.

Let’s hope the local clubs will support Miri and help them to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Baram Trophy and make it a memorable event.

This tournament is the second oldest in the state after Club’s own Song Thian Cheok Memorial 7s. Invitations apparently have been sent out or are being sent to the various clubs in Sarawak and Brunei. I will have more details on this front in the weeks leading up to the tournament.

The next tournament is the Curtin University 10s, supposedly penciled in for Oct but to date, I have yet to receive any updates on it from my sources in Curtin. So Azfar (Aspa), if you are reading this, please get in touch with me with updates.

The other tournament is the Inter-Region for the police contingents of Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei, also penned in for an Oct date yet to be confirmed and my mate, Abdul Rahim, has yet to get back to me with the details. The original format bandied about for the latter tournament is 15s but the last I heard, it might be 10s. So I guess these two tournaments are still in the works until I hear from Azfar and Abdul Rahim hopefully in the next week or after the Raya festivities.

Should these two tournaments not take off or are postponed, then the 25th Baram Trophy will be the last local tournament for the year.

In the decider of the Tri-Nations last week between Australia and New Zealand in Brisbane, the Wallabies went down to the All Blacks 24-28, losing by a try.

The Wallabies were 17-7 ahead at the break but were unable to resist the All Blacks’ onslaught on the restart and conceded three soft tries. They managed to score one more try with a minute of time left which was the classic too-late scenario and thus lost the match, championship, and the cup.

In the north, the results from last week’s French Top 14 games saw RC Toulon losing 13-19 to Stade Francais on Friday while on Saturday, Perpignan crushed Aviron Bayonnais 38-10, Castres went down 11-19 to Dax, Montpellier RC overwhelmed Montauban TG 15 32-10, Bourgoin Jallien won 18-6 against Stade Montois, Clermont Auvergne defeated Toulouse 16-6 and Biarritz Olympique won 24-5 against CA Brive.

Yesterday’s match was between Dax and Biarritz Olympique while today’s matches will see Castres facing Clermont Auvergne, Aviron Bayonnais meeting Stade Montois, RC Toulon going up against Bourgoin Jallieu, Stade Francais taking on CA Brive, Montauban TG15 playing Toulouse, and Montpellier RC against Perpignan.

Standings after last week’s games see Stade Francais still leading followed by Perpignan, Montpellier RC, Biarritz Olympique, Aviron Bayonnais, Clermont Auvergne, Toulouse, Montauban TG 15, RC Toulon, Bourgoin Jallien, Dax, Stade Montois, CA Brive, and Castres.

Meanwhile in last week’s Guinness Premiership, Sale Sharks won 18-15 against Saracens on Friday and on Saturday, Bath went down 17-21 to Gloucester, Harlequins thumped Bristol 31-13, and Leicester Tigers won 24-22 against London Irish.

On Sunday, Newcastle defeated Northampton 32-22, and London Wasps were edged by Worcester 10-11.

Harlequins are leading the table going into this weekend’s round followed by Leicester Tigers, Sale Sharks, London Irish, Bath, Newcastle, Northampton, Worcester, Gloucester, Saracens, London Wasps and Bristol.

There will be a game today for everyone at 4pm.