Guam got their Asia Rugby Championship Division III East campaign off to a winning start, beating Brunei 66-12 on Tuesday.
Two tries from Cory Morrison and 17 points from Gerard Aguon secured the win for Guam, ranked 72nd in the World Rugby rankings.
Aguon scored six conversions and a try, one of 10 tries scored by the visitors with the match being played at Belapan Stadium.
“I am happy with the outcome,” said head coach Anthony Penn. “We have a lot to work on, we made changes in the second half and lost our structure, but we had a few debutants and they did themselves justice. Credit to Brunei they gave a spirited performance.”
Next for Guam will be a match against China and should they win they will be crowned Asia Rugby Championship Division III East champions.
“China are a tough side, they will be structured and organised. We just have to work on a lot of our policies and improve our structures,” added Penn.
“We only came together a week ago and half of our squad have not played for Guam before so this is a bit of a development year. But we are just trying to improve and all our guys put their hand up today and they should be very proud. But we need to raise the bar against China.”
Playing in their first international in three years the match will have provided valuable experience for Brunei, with their tries coming courtesy of Martin Brighty and Joseva Lauvanua.
Trailing 44-0, Brunei improved in the second-half, only losing 22-12 and scoring their tries to the delight of the home crowd.
“There is still a lot of space between us, they blew us away in the first half,” said Brunei head coach Mogamat Shafeek Kamalie.
“But we closed the gap in the second half. In terms of what we came out to do we could not do that because they blew us away. Gaps appeared and congratulations to Guam, they knew exactly what they wanted to do.
“At half time we said to draw a line under the first half, and overall I am happy with the effort the team has put in. We will have to work very hard against China and there is a lot of hard work ahead of us. We can bounce back from this, now we look to the next game.”
