The inaugural Middle East North Africa Under-16s Championship will be played in Beirut in March between Lebanon, Palestine XIII and Saudi Schools Select. The tournament, which will become an annual fixture in the region’s expanding rugby league calendar, will be played at the American University of Beirut’s state of the art sporting facilities on the Mediterranean coastline in the heart of West Beirut.

Lebanon’s national team, the Junior Cedars, has been in preparation for a month under coaches Nader Mgheit, Hatem Hanna, Nagibe Hamzeh and Ryan Tout, although the final squad will not be selected until Thursday 25th February. This year’s edition retains three players from the first ever Junior Cedars team of 2009, Houssam Kalouch, Mohamed Dennaoui and Hilal Kaddoumi, with Kalouch and Kadoumi providing some direction in midfield. The side suffered the loss of Balamand High School stand-out Noor Masri with a broken ankle on Thursday.
The Saudis, the pioneers of Middle East rugby league youth development, will field a stronger side than the one that lost to Lebanon in October, although several key Jeddah Prep & Grammar players are not available to travel. British International School won the recent Jeddah schools tournament and make up the majority of the 18-man squad, which includes Badr Al-Saud, a member of the royal family. Tour manager Chris Ratcliffe said: “this year’s squad is far more advanced in general skills than last year’s and there is a great deal of flexibility in the positions they can play. I fully expect us to be more competitive than last year where we only had about 30% of the possession and made far too many errors. All in all, regardless of the results it should be another great occasion and hopefully the tournament will only get bigger with more countries getting involved year after year.”
One such newcomer to rugby league is Palestine, with this tournament seeing the debut of a Palestinian selection, with coaches Ahmad and Rabie El Masri having put together a side made up of boys from the UNRWA schools. Promisingly, the project, which is now in its second year, has attracted interest from the United Nations and moves are afoot to obtain official recognition from the Palestinian Olympic Committee in the West Bank.

Lebanon and Palestine kick the tournament off on Monday.

MENA Under-16s Championship fixtures

LEBANON v PALESTINE XIII, Monday 1st March 4.30pm
PALESTINE XIII v SAUDI SCHOOLS, Thursday 4th March 4.30pm
LEBANON v SAUDI SCHOOLS, Saturday 6th March, 1pm