Sabah's Eagles Rugby Club proved to be just too strong for Brunei after beating the national team 95-6 at the Sabah Governor's Cup Invitational Rugby 15s yesterday.
Despite the loss, the national team can still take some pride in the fact they did not field a single foreign player as opposed to the Sandakan-based club who, as expected, had a host of Fijian and semi-professional players in their ranks.
Brunei will now meet Sarawak in tomorrow's battle for bronze after the latter fell to Labuan in yesterday's other tie of the four-team tournament at the Likas Stadium in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.
"The Sabah team consists of players from Fiji and they are semi-pro players... They are just on a different level," said Lim Shen Quan, the national team's backs captain.
"But credit to the team, we managed to give a fight and score six points in the match.
"We will play Sarawak for bronze on Sunday.
"Sarawak are more like us, the majority of them are local and I think we will have a good chance against them," he added.
The Philippines and Hong Kong, who were originally booked to play in the tournament, had to withdraw due to prior commitments.
The national team entered the Sabah Governor's Cup Invitational Rugby 15s, which is being held for the first time, on the back of two losses (38-0 and 28-0) to hosts Cambodia at the Asian 5 Nations tournament.
