Ghana national Rugby team, the Ghana Eagles, made Ghanaians feel proud when they beat rivals, Benin, 46 points to 5 in the first match of the Rugby Africa Regional Challenge Group West 1 tournament on the Accra Sports Stadium pitch on Sunday, 30 April, 2017.
The match started frenetically with both teams scoring tries in the first eight minutes, first by Ghana’s Jalilu Yussif Abdul followed by a Benin try from Alphon Guegi.
From then on, however, it was one-way traffic with Ghana scoring four more tries in the first half and three tries in the second half. Of the eight tries scored only three were converted to add six points to the try tally of 40.
Try scorers for Ghana were Jalilu Yussif Abdul (2), Abdul Mumuni Halidu (1), Theophilus Opai (3), Michael Acqueye (1), Kelechi Onwuta (1). Theophilus Opai converted two tries with Francis Donkor adding one more conversion.
In the next encounter on Wednesday 3rd May, Benin will face another archrival, Togo, in the second of the three-match tournament. The match will again be played at the Accra Sports Stadium and will kick off at 3 pm. The final match will be between two teams with good and close relationships, Ghana and Togo, on Sunday 7 May at the Accra Sports Stadium.
Match officiating was handled by World Rugby referee Ignace Ndri assisted by the Ghanaian team of Clement Dennis, Ishmael Adamah, Robert Oram, and Benson Botchwey. The Match Commissioner for the Africa rugby Regional Challenge is Mr Alain Koubé with Mr Charles Yapo as Citing Officer.
The Judicial Officer, Mr Said Chikhaoui, could not make it to Ghana. Although the encounter was a hard-fought battle, there were no serious injuries, and no sending-off sanctions were handed out by the Match Referee.
Mr. Herbert Mensah, President of Ghana Rugby, remarked that he was satisfied with the performance of the Ghana Eagles although there was room for improvement.
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