Around this time last year, my international career dream came to a complete standstill due to the pandemic. From 2018 to March 2020, my South African colleagues and I worked on forming the Malaysian Valke Rugby Club to compete in the newly created Global Rapid Rugby (GRR) competition. I was the General and Team Manager of this newly formed club. For our first season, which was scheduled to run from March till June 2020, we selected around 28 South African players from the Valke Rugby club in South Africa, and 5 Malaysian national representatives for our ten-round GRR tournament.
The top two teams would qualify for the final, which was scheduled to take place on the first weekend of June 2020 with prize money at stake.
GRR wanted this competition to be on par with other international competitions; so most of the players selected were from Tier One Rugby Nations – Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Wales, Argentina, England, France, Scotland, and Ireland.
In our inaugural season that began in mid-March 2020, GRR had six teams - Malaysia Valke, China Lions, Western Force, Fijian Latui, Manuma Samoa, and the South China Tigers.
The Lions were a Kiwi club team based out of New Zealand with one China player in their squad. The Western Force are from Perth, Australia, and were stacked with international talent, while The Tigers were a Hong Kong club team that recruited some fantastic Northern Hemisphere players. The Fiji and Samoa squads were mainly their respective national team stars.
So after eighteen months of solid “start-up” hard work, GRR 2020 was finally here. My South African players and coaches arrived at KLIA Airport two weeks before our Round One match, which was against the tournament favorites – the mighty Western Force. Our home training base was King Henry VIII College in Cyberjaya.
We were all fired up to make history, as GRR was about “running rugby” and less kicking. If a team were to score a try that was started from their opponent's twenty-two-meter line, then the scoring team would be awarded a nine-point try. A conversion (The kick for the extra two points after a try is scored) is not required.
Even though the rules were different from the usual fifteen-man game, the international community could not wait to see GRR in full swing.
We arrived in Perth on Thursday 12th March 2020. We stayed at the Holiday Inn and some of the hotel staff on duty were Malaysian. So “makan” was not a problem. However, there were so many rumors floating around on Friday that our Saturday 14th March 2020 match would not proceed due to Covid. The Melbourne Grand Prix was canceled on Friday at around 4pm, so we feared the worst.
But the power of positive thinking was the real winner that day as we got the “green light” at around 8pm that we were allowed to compete the next day.
We were confident we could beat the Force even though we had limited preparation time. The Force had been together for a number of years and they were the tournament favorites.
My childhood dream has always been to be a Coach or a Team Manager (TM) of a professional Football, Rugby or Basketball Club. Allah selected Rugby for me and I was not complaining. The main duties of a TM are to organize the travel, food, accommodation, uniforms, coordinate the substitutions during the match, whilst also communicating the coaches' technical calls to the players on the field. The communication is conducted through a two-way radio system.
Our match started at 6pm and we played in rainy and cold conditions. We were very competitive during the first twenty minutes of the match, but some sloppy mistakes led to the Force scoring a number of tries. We scored two converted tries and even though we lost the game, there were many positives that were taken from the match.
After tasting defeat, we all looked at each other and said, “There is no way we were going to lose to them in the return match on May 1st 2020 at Bukit Jalil National Stadium.
“All my South African brothers had already started calling the National Stadium their home. They kept referring to the stadium as “Bukit” and it always sounded quite funny due to their thick South African accents.
After Round One, GRR postponed the tournament and said they would try and restart the competition once it was safe to play without any fear of COVID-19.
Even though it was not the news we all wanted to hear, it was for the best.
The Valke in South Africa are also known as the Falcons. So at the moment, our wings are clipped but I am confident that we will fly again where no Force can stop us.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my South African-Malaysian brothers and sisters for making huge sacrifices to come to Cyberjaya, Malaysia with the goal of trying to take their sporting careers to the next level.
Fear not my Malaysian Valke family, our journey is very much still on.
Ben Ibrahim is a TV Commentator, Sports & Media Consultant. In his career, he has also worked for FIBA, FISU, Foxsports, the Ministry of Youth & Sports, and the Malaysia Valke (GRR). You can contact him on his Public Facebook page or his Instagram Account @benibrahim_
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