Keith Roberts trains the rugby trainers

By Harry Jayachandra

Keith Roberts might sound rather strange to Sri Lankan rugby fans. But he is somewhat of a legend in world rugby. Roberts is the man who designed the fitness regime for the mighty All Blacks. And the good news is he will be in Sri Lanka to conduct a coaching programme for Sri Lankan trainers in June.

Vice President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union Asanga Seneviratne told The Sunday Times: “Just having sporadic training will not help the players. Bringing Roberts down is just one step in our plan to help Sri Lanka climb the rankings. We have also planned to have a four story building which will have accommodation for the players, restaurants and other facilities. This is pending municipality approval. Once this structure is complete, we will be in a position to monitor a player’s fitness and skill level over a period of time. We are looking at having tours to Asian countries in order to give our players more exposure on the international stage.”

He added: “And as far as the Hong Kong Sevens was concerned, people need to look at the bigger picture. We looked professional because the jerseys were brought down from New Zealand. I agree a few mistakes were made in the rotation of players. But overall we did well. We restricted Fiji to just 45 odd points. And playing in the bowl were teams like France who are the current holders of the Six Nations Crown and Wales. Nobody can realistically expect Sri Lanka to beat countries like these.”
Meanwhile everybody is gearing up for league rugby tournament sponsored by Caltex for the seventh successive year. It is left to be seen who will mount a challenge to get the trophy away from Kandy.. The league begins on May 18.
Following are the fixtures;

The top 8 teams in the last tournament standings will be included in Segment I ( Kandy SC , CR, CH, Havelocks, Army, Police, Air Force, Old Zahira) . The remaining 4 teams ( Dim/Dicks , Galle, Jawatte, Navy) will be joined by 4 other new teams from the provinces in the Segment II (i.e. Kurunegala RFC, Peterson SC, a team from Kandy( Kandy Youth/OTSC). A team from Sabaragamuwa(KV))