The Hurricane Storm Touch Rugby Club together with Qatar Touch conducted the ‘Invitational Mini Touch Tournament’ on Friday at the Cambridge School grounds in Doha. 
The season-opener marked the first Touch event of the season involving some of Qatar’s top-ranked competitive teams, including the Hurricanes, Blue Falcons1, the Storm, Blue Falcons2 and the Arab Force.
In a fiercely-battled final, Arab Force, making their tournament debut, shocked favourites, the Hurricanes, scoring a late second-half runaway try to overcome the hosts 2 -1 and stealing the mantelpiece. 
The victory is the first of its kind for Arab Force. Captain and Finals Man of the Match, Badre Bakaddouri, was very excited about the win.
“What a great feeling it is to win the Touch season-opener and beat the favourites. It is also a great honour to be invited to take part in this amazing event. Thank you to the Hurricanes for an outstanding performance. They really stretched us to the limit.”
Hurricane Storm Club president Hans Thomaz was positive despite the loss.
“Both our teams played like a family. However, it was not our day. Congratulations to Arab Force, who were deserved winners. They were super in attack. What they lacked in technicality, they made up in speed. They showed that they will be a real force for future tournaments. We are excited about their debut win and this is a great result for the sport of Touch,” he said.
Thomaz continued, “As for the Hurricanes and Storm teams, I’m always proud of their performance. However, the loss demonstrates that we are not invincible and there is always room for improvement.”
The two Blue Falcon teams fought for the third and fourth places. The game was decided only in the last few seconds by Blue Falcons 2, with the final score 2-1 in extra time.