After a disappointing few seasons where the once upon atime Team Magnifico aka NTU Rugby Team failed to finish with a gold medal in the highly acclaimed Inter varsity championships, things are starting to look bright again for the Boonlay based team.

Anyone who has been down to St Andrew's School over the weekend will note with interest that NTU looks a tad different from usual. In fact, this time round, they brought the whooping and their hapless rivals brought the asses (except of course for the polynesian malaysians).

What was it that inspired such a turn of fortunes for the fallen giants, one may ask. Perhaps upon closer scrutiny, one might recognise the flamboyance, arrogance, and of coz the trademark child bearing hips of the very one who led the NUS Clementi pretenders on their bid to secure gold, silver and bronze in the IVP. The person in question is of course Casanova Xu Ren Han. Blessed with rock star good looks, he could have lived life on the fast lane and rubbed shoulders with Wu Bai and Mayday in the Taiwanese rock and roll scene. However, he chose to embrace rugby as we quote him, "I want to be with the boys, to be in them, be one of them, and to penetrate them"

When quizzed on why he chose to pull on the black jersey and turn out for his one time bitter rivals, he replied coolly "Before, I saw no reason as to why I should ever turn out for NTU. I mean, there's nothing in common between me and them. However, I found the common link last year. Believe it or not, it is their Bronze medal in the Tri Unis that prompted me to play for them."

While the skills of Rockstar Xu is definitely instrumental in finetuning the raw speed of Headless Chicken Sidney, the editors firmly believe that the team's revival should be attributed to that of another exotic player in the team, less pussy than the one from Canada.

Going by the screen name of Chathura Withanage, one can safely say that this guy will never excite the countless talent scouts of Bollywood scattered around Little India. Despite his shortcomings, the editors believe that it is his raw power and strength that lifted the team to their best display in years. Yet how is it that for such a talent, precious little is known about him.

For a guy affectionately referred to as Oreo by loving teammates, the editors have unearthed some shocking links to him, and another popular international personality in the 90s, Kamala. As such, we believe that the basis of Chathu's raw strength and agility comes from his years as a professional wrestler.

We are shocked to learn of the resemblence that these 2 heroes share, perhaps we should let you fans decide for yourselves on this one.

Whether they are one and the same, one thing is for sure, those nips sure look like oreos.

More Updates

Chathu's roommate in the ex rugby fort Hall 1, Babyface Assassin Yik has reportedly been buying loads of milk off the shelves of NTUC. When asked about his odd behaviour, he quipped "You dont know what you are missing out. You twist off the black cover, lick the cream off and dunk the whole thing in milk, and pop it in your mouth. I can eat those oreos all night long"

Games and Scores:

Group Stage - :
1) Polytechnic Shah Alam 17-5
2) Fijian Uniten 5-12
3) Perlis 0-24
4) Uitm msia B 7-5
5) Kelantan 28-0

Knock-Out Stage - :

6) Plate semis Trenganu 17-5
7) Plate finals Pahang 19-0

The University Teknologi Mara (UiTM in short) sports fiesta is an event held by UiTM (Shah Alam) to bring together sportsmen from all over the region, namely Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, to celebrate sporting excellence. The 5 day long event had a wide variety of sports which included Sepak Takraw, Rugby 7s, Bowling, Badminton, and Futsal.

NTU rugby team was one of two Singapore varsity teams that were invited to participate in this sports fiesta in Malaysia, the other team being Singapore Institute of Management.
Some may think the term ‘fiesta’ meant that the tournament was merely an exhibition one, but in actual fact, it was as competitive as it could be. Many of the various universities from Malaysia boasted National age group players, while some other universities had the backing of experienced players doing their post graduate studies. The NTU team, for one, took this tournament very seriously, as we looked to prep our team for the upcoming SUNIG 7s (Singapore University Games) in September.

Team NTU kicked off the tournament with a convincing 17-5 victory over Polytechnic Shah Alam, with 3 different players (Qing Yao, Fadzil and Aidil) scoring tries to open their accounts in the competition. However, it was not to be smooth sailing for the boys from Boon Lay, as we suffered 2 consecutive defeats, and lost our inspirational captain, Ang Tze Shien. One thing to note was that the 2-3 days before the trip were filled with bad news, as players had to withdraw from the trip due to personal reasons. The most significant loss was vice-captain cum star player Sidney Kumar, who broke his nose while playing for his club. Therefore with the injury of Tze Shien (better known as Tze to the team), the team was effectively down to 10 men, when 14 players a team were a norm.

Whatever the team may have lacked in numbers, they certainly made up for it with heart. Pure determination, and the desire to go for one more yard, one more point. One incident pretty much summed up the spirit of the team: When Tze laid down on the field in pain, clutching his torn knee ligaments, the medics with the stretcher were ready to carry him out. That was when Tze exclaimed, ‘No way am I going out on a stretcher! You boys carry on, and go win it!’
What verve, what spirit, displayed by the NTU captain fantastic.

It was obvious that the unfortunate injury suffered by Tze inspired the rest of the team, as we went on to register 3 back to back victories, and in the process, securing our berth in the Plate Finals against the team from Pahang. In the finals, we fought hard, and eventually steamrolled over our opponents 19-0 to secure the Plate Championship, ending the tournament on a high note.

To conclude, 3 words at the end of Tze’s post finals interview summed up the performance of the newly crowned Plate champions—Well done boys.

Edited by CQY

Congratulations to the 12 players who represented NTU Rugby in the recent UiTM Rugby 7s Tournament. Everyone back home is very proud of what you achieved!