Singapore Rugby Union’s Jonathan Leow On Their Regeneration

At the Unions Cup 2025 held in Chinese Taipei, we sat down with the Singapore Rugby Union Men’s XV programme Lead and tournament Assistant Coach, Jonathan Leow*, to hear about how the Union is going through a period of regeneration, establishing pathways and rescheduling the domestic season.

Feature Photo Credit – Mr Wu

Unions Cup 2025 Reflections – Jonathan Leow

The Singapore men’s 15s team lost both their matches in the Unions Cup 2025 tournament, which was disappointing for the team as defending champions, but also considering the amount of time and effort that had gone into the tournament preparation.

At the time, Leow told us that the experienced players in the squad had done well to lift the guys on tour.

“We have a couple of old heads in the team, and they’ve stepped up. Our captain has taken charge, and a few other boys have come as well. We’ve got quite a good mix this year with a lot more debutants than we would have in a normal year, especially with the SEA games and our Sevens squad preparing for that, so we’ve taken this opportunity to play a lot more new players.”

Photo Credit – Mr Wu

He told us that the average age in the Singapore Men’s squad at the Unions Cup was 28-30, and the oldest player was 35. 

“It is a regeneration for us. Last year was a restart. This year’s regeneration. I think the challenge for us is, how do we expand our playing pool to try and support so many programs? But I think the 15s has been a good start to try and develop that.”

In 2024, the national 15s Men’s team won the Unions Cup at home and played a friendly match against Malaysia. Like so many countries in the region, they have been deprived of regular international Test rugby and the Unions Cup is an important part of the reboot for their and other teams’ national programmes.

He said of the preparation in the lead-up to the 2025 tournament, “The camp was really, really positive. The boys are learning as well to switch on and off in between matches on tour. Not many have experienced this.

The number of caps everyone has is very small. Last year was getting the program started, this year is building, and we want to be constantly refining the program so that it can be sustainable.”

Shift in SRU Domestic Rugby Season

Domestically, there are changes coming to Singapore’s rugby season calendar as they try to align programmes and national team responsibilities. 

Photo Credit – Mr Wu

Leow told us, “We are now moving towards a shift in seasons for the domestic club season. It’s going to move to January. Traditionally, we normally started in November or at the end of October.

This year, with the SEA Games in December 2025, we decided as a Union to move the season to January 2026, which then gives us time to prepare for the next six months and also gives us a good amount of time to prepare. This year, we had three months to get ready for the Unions Cup but only played one warm-up game (against the HKCR Dragons).”

He said of the preparedness for the Unions Cup, “Hindsight is 20/20, right? We have got to get a few more games, but does that mean internal games, or do you want to try to get opposition from outside? It is a challenge, even with games against Malaysia we are in talks with them to try and do something, especially now that our seasons are more aligned moving forward.”

Leow said of future collaboration with their rivals and neighbours, Malaysia, “It might be they want to do some warm-up games, and with the season alignment, it gives us an opportunity to reset our program and build on what we did this year.”

The Malaysian Men XV dropped down from the Asia Rugby Championship this season, losing out to Sri Lanka. There have been no confirmed Division 1 fixtures announced by Asia Rugby for 2025 thus far, but the Unions Cup offers regularly planned Tests that teams and Unions can plan around. 

Both SRU and Malaysia Rugby are founding members of the newly formed SEARF, launched in May 2025.

Unions Cup Expansion

In addition to Singapore, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, and the new 2025 champions, the Philippines, Guam will join the Unions Cup in 2026.

Both Malaysia and Indonesia had been rumoured to sign on, and the Thai Rugby Union, which will host in 2026, said after the tournament that both teams will be involved in 2026, making a total of seven Men’s national teams.

Photo Credit – Mr Wu – the Philippines won the 2025 edition of the Unions Cup.

Leow explained, “The initial plan after the Unions Cup is to kind of have an exit interview, a review process when we get back, and then take a bit of a reset break. We’ve got potentially a game against Stockholm Exiles in November 2025 (who will be travelling over to compete in the SCC 7s). We might look at that development fixture to get more boys in the setup.

From a development standpoint, it’s giving more locally based boys an opportunity to experience top-tier rugby and using 15s as a launch pad for whatever else we want to do. Given the fact that the majority of our school rugby is in this format, the 15s program is still very important for us, and that’s kind of my role – shaping the program.”

He added that after the Unions Cup, they want to maintain better connections with all eligible players. “We actually had a group of about 60 players we identified from the club season to join our training camps. I think it’s about refining our processes to make sure that we don’t lose track of them. In the past, we would play, shake hands in the airport, and move on to the next time we played.

We want to hold on to a core group of boys and build on top of that. We want to build on the guys who made the squad and the boys who didn’t make it. So we want to make sure that there’s a pathway for them – I think that’s our hope.”

Furthermore, on 21 June 2025, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed to launch the SEARF Women’s 15’s Championship 2026 between the Philippines Rugby Football Union, Singapore Rugby, and Malaysia Rugby, and the 3 national teams will play a round-robin format in February 2026, with Malaysia set to host the first edition.

Promoting Rugby in Singapore  – “Making sure the drumbeat is consistent”

The SRU has also organised a number of high-profile coaching clinics in 2025, which have featured former international players and, at one weekend’s camp, former All Blacks, which were very popular.

Photo Credit – SRU – All Blacks Rugby Clinic in Singapore 2025

We asked if this was part of the planning to try and get more players in the sport and improve the quality of the players and coaches, and raise the bar across the game in Singapore.

Jonathan Leow explained, “There’s been, over the past eight to nine weeks, an unbelievable amount of publicity. I think what Sidney Kumar (SRU GM) and his team are doing is working on making sure that the drumbeat is consistent, and that fuels the fire, so to speak. 

Where the international 15 program works is that it becomes the catalyst platform for all that interest and aspiration. Not everyone’s gonna play Sevens Rugby, right? And at the end of the day, the Sevens format does give you Olympic potential, or the chance to be competing at the SEA games, but there are some players that want to have an opportunity in the 15s form of the game.”

The SRU has in 2025 launched the “Beyond The Line” YouTube Series looking at their efforts at the SEA 7s 2025, and has been promoting several World Rugby courses and programmes to get age-grade players and community coaches involved in the game.

The Singapore Rugby Union, like all unions, has to cater for domestic challenges too.

“We also have a lot of boys who will go away and study overseas and do their national service at a key age, but they also need an opportunity to come back into the programmes, which is kind of where the 15s setup helps,” said Leow.

He added, “National service is two and a half years, which is why we’re also looking at getting younger boys who are 18-20 years old into the system before they complete their service. And then they are incentivised as they can say they have played for their country and come back when they can to continue their journey.”

That specific age group at which most Singaporeans complete their mandatory national service makes it very difficult for the SRU to field U20 age-grade teams in regional tournaments. The Asia Rugby U20 Sevens will be held in India in August 2025.

Leow said, “I think ultimately, as a union, it’s probably a two or three-year pipeline. Unless you are aspirational and have the pathway set up, the investment doesn’t disappear. 

Do we want to compete for a Rugby World Cup spot? That is 50/50. But I think it’s very important to realise we’re not running parallel programs. We’re running a permanent programme, and we want to have ongoing development, and we are continuing with our goals.

Ultimately, it becomes a resource issue, but definitely, there is a need and a desire to ensure that we cater for every platform.”

*Jonathan Leow is the former Secretary-General of the SRU. We had published that he was the current one based on the SRU website, but this has been amended.

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