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The Dubai Sevens debacle
By Shamseer Jaleel
The Sri Lankan sevens squad was humiliated to the maximum at the recently concluded Dubai Rugby sevens, which was organized by the Exiles Rugby Club of Dubai and played in front of a packed crowd of 20000. This was the best available national sevens side and they were under training for the last one month under the watchful eyes of Chandrishan Perera and Hisham Abdeen.

It was very clear that it is high time that we recruit at least two non nationals to the sevens squad in the caliber of our local players such as Sajith Malikarachchi and Sanjeeva Jayasinghe.

The former is a good defender and the other is an excellent runner in order to keep up the pace of the other international sides. It is over to the officials at the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) who have played at top level to stop the humiliation we are facing at the IRB sevens circuit and soon we will not be invited for any of them if something is not done immediately.

This was very clear, as we are in doubt for the famous Hong Kong sevens, which we have participated from the inception in 1976. Though lately we have appeared to be making up the numbers this was not the story in early 80's when players in the caliber of Hisham Abdeen and Nalin De Silva representing the country. The side won the Hong Kong sevens Bowls Competition in 1984 beating Thailand 16-10 and the losing finalist in 1986 and 1987 to Papua New Guinea 10-22 and hosts Hong Kong 20-24.

Our sevens team led by Radhikka Hettiarachchi started of well at the Dubai sevens by defending to an European champion side France who cut loose in the second half to win 42-7 and in the next outing they were crushed by the Rugby World Cup champions 2003 England by a huge 0-75 and ended the group matches by losing to a little known side from Morocco 7-19.

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