ISLAMABAD: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) rugby team on Tuesday defeated Pakistan by 95-0 during the first match of the Asia Rugby Championship Division 1 played at Lahore’s Punjab Football Stadium.
The game, which was part of a two-match series, kicked off at 8:30 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time. From the very outset, the UAE team completely dominated the match and were 41-0 within the first 24 minutes of the game.
By the end of the 80-minute match, the UAE had scored a whopping 95, while Pakistan remained at zero.
“UAE Rugby national team wins against Pakistan in the first match,” the UAE Rugby Federation announced in a Twitter post.
The two teams will lock horns for the second leg of the championship’s Division 1 on July 8. The match will be telecast live on Pakistan’s state-owned PTV Sports.
Rugby is a close-contact team sport in which players have to run with the ball in their hands. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.
Pakistan’s national rugby team made its international debut in a match against Sri Lanka in 2003, while the UAE, which had been part of the Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union since 1974, became a full member of Asia Rugby in 2012.
Pakistan and the UAE regularly have cultural, educational, and business exchanges as well as sports events, which provide a platform for people of both countries to know more about each other and strengthen bilateral ties.