Maharlikans – PRFU Talent ID Programme A Global Club For Filipino Rugby

The Philippine Maharlikans are a Philippine Rugby Football Union-affiliated club with a presence in the UK, USA, Australia, Hong Kong & Europe who play 15s, 10s & 7s rugby. Their main goal is to develop current and future Philippine Volcanoes (national team players) and spearhead talent ID programs that connect Philippine heritage players with the international markets.

We spoke with the UK rep and national Philippines player Vincent Young on how they formed, what their plans are for 2024 and beyond, and details about the upcoming fixture on March 29th at the Saracens ground in London.

After several attempts to record the interview, the gremlins for online Zoon sessions persist, well beyond the troubled and woeful pandemic times, we managed to get down to business with Vince Young, a Philippines national team player who is based in the UK.

Vince is one of several Filipino diaspora spread around the globe and now helps run the PRFU-affiliated Maharlikans. The several cohorts keep in regular touch as they act as regional development clubs for the Philippines Rugby Football Union, enabling overseas-based players to play together but also sourcing eligible heritage or fully Filipino players to represent their country. 

Funding is also an important goal, to help support the grassroots and youth-based programmes in the Philippines.

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Vince Young – Filipino National Team Rugby Player

Vince Young

Vince works for the Mental Health Trust in the UK as a Financial Controller, one of the reasons he enjoys the role is that it allows him the flexibility to work remotely from the Philippines when the national training camps are underway. He is a self-acknowledged heritage player whose mom is from the Philippines and his dad is Irish but he was born in the UK and grew up in Hong Kong!

Vince: “We’ve got loads of Filipino family in the Philippines. So I’ve got three uncles and like 33 cousins – so we’ve got quite a big family in the Philippines and they’re from Quezon Province. I get back maybe once or twice a year anyway for rugby and just to see the family.”

Vince credits his early rugby days to playing in Hong Kong and was actually in the Hong Kong U20s before switching to play for the Philippines. 

Vince: “In Hong Kong, I played rugby for under the 20s and I played with the Kowloon Rugby Club – we won the Premiership when I was like 18 I met Matt Cullen (he was General Manager at the PRFU for a decade from 2007 to 2017) and he sort of got me involved with the Philippines quite quickly.

I think I was 19 when I played for the Philippines at the Asian Games in South Korea in 2014. I have been all over the place with the national side and have played in three SEA Games and toured Singapore. Malaysia, Thailand etc. I have also played in two Asia Rugby Championships in 2018/2019 and played at the Hong Kong Sevens in 2019. We played Tonga, Zimbabwe, and Hong Kong, and we beat Zimbabwe to get through to the quarterfinals and lost a close game to Hong Kong 12-10.”

He was part of the gold-medal-winning SEA Games when the Philippines hosted in 2019 and fondly recalls the Hong Kong Sevens experience (Rugby Asia 247 was actually at both tournaments he mentioned)

Vince: “The SEA Games in the Philippines was pretty unreal. We need to do more of that because the support is crazy. They just love cheering no matter what happens, no matter whose scores, they’ll just be cheering, it was good.

For the Hong Kong Sevens, I can just remember being on a pitch and just you hear everyone booing us when we played the hosts. That, if anything, just spurs you on more. So it was just a good atmosphere. It’d be good if we go back.”

That’s one of the main issues since the pandemic. Everyone was hit hard by the lack of playing and hit commercially as sponsors suffered in the economic slowdown. The Phillipines men and women were relegated from the top tier Asia Rugby Sevens Series in 2023 and will compete in the Trophy Series this season – which is due to be played in Nepal from 4-6 October 2024. 

Vince also admits that the pandemic probably put the PRFU and the national teams back a good five years as they felt they were on a perceived upward trajectory after playing the Hong Kong Sevens and winning the SEA Games in 2019.

Maharlikans – Pathways For Filipino Players 

The PRFU itself has also had to pivot since the impact of COVID-19. Having lost some sponsors, a change of the Board and on the hunt for new coaches this season, they have formalised a new strategy for their development (we have a full interview with PRFU President Ada Milby coming soon).

The Philippine Maharlikans club themselves say online “Our mission extends beyond the rugby field; we are dedicated to nurturing the sport’s growth back in the Philippines. In a meaningful partnership with the Philippine Rugby Union, we are poised to bridge support from our games and social media platforms directly to the grassroots level of rugby in our homeland.”

Vince: “After COVID, everything sort of died down. There was no rugby, like no rugby in Asia, no rugby in the UK. So we started this Maharlikans because we needed to play more sevens for those of us playing rugby outside of the Philippines and those not in the national team. 

A guy called Sean Lynch came up with the idea of the Maharlikans, like a club, outside of the Union which was not associated with the Union at first, so there were no liabilities, in case anything bad happened, the Union would not get in trouble for it – that was the idea. 

We have played in Darwin at the Hottest Sevens in Australia and at the Lake Macquarie 7s in the USA tournament.”

It was also a good idea to use it to get players from overseas who were eligible to play for the national team. Vince admits that there was a period where players would attend camps from overseas based on their CV but they were not as good as one might expect them to be. “We’ve kind of formed this as sort of like a vetting process. To just make sure that when people actually go over to the Philippines (to attend national team camps), they are who they say they are.”

The club is also self-funded, explained Vince. They have a kit sponsor plus a few other sponsors who he says were “just basically rugby enthusiasts who liked what we’re doing.”

Reaching out to eligible players is a core focus of the Maharlikans too, and the team used to focus on Sevens Rugby but now is targeting more XV matches and tours which means they can arrange matches against national teams such as Malta.

“We’ve realised there are so many more players who play 15s rather than Sevens. And there are so many more full Filipinos in the UK, Europe, and the US who don’t want to play sevens, and fifteens is more inclusive. So we’ve sort of changed our focus.”

What Does Maharlikans Mean?

Vince explained the tongue twister of what the name means (there is also the Magandaquins which is the women’s setup in the USA and Australia).

Vince: So Maharlika was the name of the Philippines before the Spanish came. There are lots of streets in Manila and around the Philippines called Maharlika. So the Maharlikans we just thought of putting the “an” at the end, like the English way to say that’s where we are from.

Then there’s also the Maharlika, which is supposed to be like, sort of a free man. So back in the day, if the Philippines were to go to war, they called upon Maharlikans to go and fight (feudal warriors) for the datu (chief), and they would go off to war. 

That’s why our logo is like Lapulapu. I don’t know if you know the story of Lapulapu – he was the datu or the chief who chopped off Magellan’s head in Cebu at the Battle of Mactan. So he’s our idol. We aspire to be a warrior.”

Philippine Maharlikans vs Hatfield College – 29 March 2024

One of the outcomes of the club’s presence in the UK has been what has become a traditional XVs match against Hatfield College – and the Maharlikans play them on March 29 2024 at the StoneX Stadium, which is English Premiership club Saracen’s home ground in London.

Vince explained more about the upcoming fixture.

Vince: “Hatfield College is a college from Durham. They play in the collegiate league in the UK  and they are the best rugby college at Durham University. We’ve played them the last two years at Durham and we raised a small amount of money (from ticket sales and used the funds to help some kids in the Philippines who play rugby.)

Last year the funds we raised went to some of the Filipino players who played for the SEA 7s in 2023, through the Rising Star program. 

Vince: “This year, we want to try and raise more money. So our target is 2000 pounds, but I think we’re gonna smash that. So like, it’s 10 pounds a ticket. And I’m pretty sure we’re gonna have over 200 people coming. Plus we’ve got a GoFundMe page people are donating to and I think we’re going to try and get Marcus Smith or one of his brothers to get some stash which we can auction off and do a bunch of other things like raffles.

“Don’t ask me how we sorted out the Saracens ground. I think one of the Durham boys, I think his godfather is the COO of StoneX and wanted to help us out. It’s just networking – I think the connections that you make, help. And when people see what you’re trying to do, they do want to help you out.”

The match will be played on Friday 29th March 2024 at 18:30 KO local UK time.

• The GoFundMe Link.
• Tickets for the match are available here.

The Path Forward For Philippine Maharlikans

With the Philippines national 7s teams playing in the Asia Rugby 7s Trophy in 2024,  the confirmation of the SEA 7s preceding the Singapore 7s in May, and the next three SEA Games confirmed to be played with rugby-playing hosts there is lots to plan around in the future. So there’s lots to look forward to in terms of the development plan.

Vince: “It’s true, but if you look at the standard of the Sevens in the local leagues (in the Philippines), it is just not good enough when you compare it to the elite level. This is the beauty of doing this Maharlikans team, I think the issue is a lot of us are only half Filipino. So you want to get local-looking players in the team. But with this, there are so many full Filipinos abroad who could be way better than the local standard. So why can’t we send them over and actually get them on board?

And if you can do it on the grassroots level, you can get these youth tournaments started again (in the Philippines), and those players will get better.”

Throughout the year, the Philippine Maharlikans engage in matches and tournaments during the European Summer months. In 2024, they hope to play at:

• Dorking Sevens – 2nd May 2024
• Tournoi 7 de Coeur (France) – 29-30 June 2024
• Stunt 7s – Super Sevens Series (Maharlikans players compete with them and the China and HKCR men have played the Series over recent years. The Stunt 7s coach also coaches the Philippine Maharlikans)

The Philippine Maharlikans are also planning to play national teams like Malta, Denmark, Norway, Jamaica (who are based in London) and the London Japanese team with a potential August 2024 fixture in London.

Vince recapped a recent match against Cambridge University, and although the Philippine Maharlikans lost, he says they hardly get to train together but by the second half they clicked and really were competitive in the match.

Vince concluded, “There is this interest in playing but it’s just providing the platform for people to play or something to aspire to or something to train for. Otherwise, you are just sitting around doing nothing, what are you doing all day? Why do you play rugby, you play rugby just because you enjoy it?

It’s good to get involved with all the lads but I think with Philippine Maharlikans, it’s nice to play with people that you wouldn’t normally play with. It’s different when you come together as a brotherhood or sisterhood. And you’re playing with people who think like you, who look like you, and have the same style.”

Asian Rugby Tournaments 2024

• Pacific Nations Cup 2024 Explained.
• Is The New Aligned Rugby Calendar Good For The Sport.
• World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024 – Dates And Venues.
• What will the men’s international rugby calendar look like in 2024?