SINGAPORE – The Singapore national rugby sevens team improved on its previous performance at the first leg of the Asian Rugby Sevens Series when they defeated Malaysia 21-19 today (Sept 27) to finish seventh out of 12 teams in the tournament’s second leg in Bangkok.

Bryan Ng scored the winning try against the 2015 South-east Asian Games silver medallists in the dying minutes.

Earlier today, the Republic had lost 0-17 to South Korea in the Cup quarter-finals, and 7-26 to China in the Plate semi-finals. They had beaten Kazakhstan 19-14 but lost to Japan 5-33 yesterday.

Despite missing out on the plate final, Singapore Rugby Union (SRU) general manager George Danapal said that the team’s seventh-placed finish was a credible result. This is because more than half of the team that took bronze at the South-east Asian Games in June were absent.

TODAY understands that three national players had retired after the SEA Games, while one has gone overseas to further his studies. Another three have national service commitments. The seven new faces in the Singapore squad in Bangkok included two national U-20 players.

Danapal also said that the result was an improvement on the 10th-placed finish posted by Singapore at the first leg of the Asian Sevens two weeks ago in Qingdao, China.

“The results bode well for our preparations for the 2017 SEA Games,” he said.

“We have a few checkpoints and markers to ensure that we are on the right track, and the Asian Seven Series is one,” he told TODAY. “We also hope to qualify for the 2018 Asian Games, if rugby sevens is included as a sport there.

“It has not been an easy route for the team, which have had several changes after June’s SEA Games. But we always try to ensure continuity, such as maintaining the same strength and conditioning we had during the SEA Games period, and carry on where we left off. So even though there are several new faces in the team now, we could move on well.”

Singapore will head to the next leg of the Asian Rugby Sevens Series in Colombo, Sri Lanka next month (Oct 10-11) looking to maintain standards, said skipper

Marah Moehammad Ishraf, 21.

“We are a very committed team, and everyone put their bodies on the line (at each game)… We improved from the first leg in Qingdao, and this it was a big leap (in terms of performance), so I am really happy about that.”