Taking sevens rugby seriously
View(s):As I said the previous week Sri Lanka retained its position at number four in the Asian Sevens Circuit, which could be termed as consistent. This adds more pressure to the seven’s teams of the future. Now they have to run faster than before to stay where they are while the need to climb higher becomes the bigger need.
This can be achieved if we work towards it and all in the game agree on what we aim to achieve. This requires all the best sevens players to be available when their services are needed.
We came close to beating Japan for third place and missed it narrowly. Korea as well as Japan keeps trying out their numbers in a bid to keep the game alive. Japan who is in the core group of seven rugby playing nations has the rugby sevens World Series to play and that is where they wish to shine more than in Asia. Whatever it may be it would have been Japan we would have beaten and we did come close to it. Just as much as many countries in the past thought that sevens is a festival game while fifteens is the focus. Many are now strengthening their attitude to include sevens in all their national plans.
The way forward to be among the best possible requires a rethink of the rugby that is played in Sri Lanka. Fiji in the past did not consider sevens as a serious variety of rugby. This changed with the success they achieved in the Hong Kong Sevens. Sevens was considered as a simple game till the 1990 success in Hong Kong which brought pride to rugby in the country.
According to Fiji rugby “ Sevens is now in the process of becoming more important than fifteens, and there is a proposal before the Fiji Rugby Union’s executive committee to select a squad of 12 players to dedicate to international sevens’ tournaments throughout the year, with these players excluded from Fiji’s fifteens’ program”.
This is because Fiji draws invitations to play in most tournaments in the Sevens circuit. It is not an exception and Fiji is not isolated in thinking that sevens has to be taken seriously. Most in the southern hemisphere have taken this game as an important part of the rugby process. Bill Freeman, Technical Director of the NZRFU during the emergence of sevens in New Zealand around 1986, commented that “it has played a huge part in the development of the All Blacks’ performance.” To the question as to whether sevens should be considered a “friend or foe” of 15s, he answered: A friend of 15s. “It teaches all the players how to use the ball; it teaches support, it improves players’ skills, it develops quick reactions. You tune your mind to play sevens, you program the game components. This is exactly the same as with 15s. Tune the mind to use all the skills and strategy you have developed in 7s; plan what is required, then work the plan. I see no problem. Sevens has a part to play in developing the 15s’ rugby player. It is a part of the armour of the player. It is not the national game, but it is certainly a part of the national game development. This is old hat which we still try to wear and seem to think that sevens does not help the 15 a side game”.
Today it is a part of the national game and more important that Rugby being an Olympic Sport the sevens has to be part of the National Plan.
We are still trying to wear the old hat and seem to think that sevens does not help the 15-a-side game. How far off can we be seen when you look at most countries that lay stress on the sevens with a number World Series games to play in.
Like in Fiji or in Nez Zealand and Australia and other countries Sri Lanka rugby probably needs a paradigm shift. A shift in the thinking and develop towards sevens as an important element: A thinking that can ensure that both forms of the game can survive and or coexist.
We must be conditioned to think that Sevens improves ball awareness skills and ball retention, because in sevens the most important thing is winning possession. Once you have possession it is important to work on what you can do with it. To think that sevens improves the handling ability, improves the tackling ability, and more important it improves responsibility of doing something positive with the ball in your hands.
Take the case of a winger who might not get a pass for 20 minutes in a 15-a-side game, in sevens if he’s winning tournaments he’s getting passes all the time. So to follow on to the coaching idea that you coach with the ball as often as possible, expose players to the ball, to use the ball in a more competitive way and under more pressure, then that is what sevens gives you. That is what the fifteens will benefit from.
Vimal Perera is a former Rugby Referee, coach and Accredited Referees Evaluator IRB