SLRFU to curb rugby drop out

Sri Lanka’s national coach of rugby Rob Yule has submitted a detailed report to the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) for discussions on how to take the game forward. He has used the report submitted to International Rugby Board (IRB) last year which reveals the fact that Sri Lanka has a reported player base total of 106,425 players.

Yule states; “When analyzing these figures, the disturbing sign is the very high percentage of drop off between reported figures in the teenage area and the open grade (club) area. If the Southern province figures are used as the example – to have 15,300 reported rugby players in the secondary school system but only list 700 in the club system corresponds to a 95% drop off rate – figures that would be extremely high in any rugby playing country. It also indicates that a high number of school leavers do not continue with a rugby experience once graduating from high school. Of course, without a data base record of these players, it is difficult to know who has been lost to the game and how big a loss that represents in future years.”

Speaking about the report to The Sunday Times, President of SLRFU Nimal Lewke said: “We discussed some of the points mentioned in the report at an Executive Council meeting held on Friday. As a result we have appointed a six man committee headed by Vice President Asanga Seneviratne to discuss the points detailed in the report with Rob Yule and come up with remedial measures. We have also decided to identify promising school players and get them employment at reputable firms without waiting for clubs to do that. We believe that this is one way to reduce the number of players who give up rugby after representing their school.”

He added: “We also plan on having a development squad. In 2001 we reached the finals of Youth World Cup but many of those players were lost thereafter. I do not intend to let that happen again. The team that represented the country at last month’s Youth Asiad was extremely good. Thus we will be selecting players from that squad who are no longer eligible to represent their school and we will fill in the gaps with Under 24 players. This team will tour Tamil Nadu next month to play a couple of matches. In addition through our UK representative Mohan Samarasinghe we have selected Fazil Marija and T. Henry to play club rugby in Essex for two months. We are sponsoring these two players.”

In conclusion Lewke said: “We have also appointed a three man committee headed by me to meet with sponsors and present our development programmes. We have also approached New Zealand to get a recognized coach for particular assignments. For example we are looking at bringing someone down just to coach the national team for the Asian Championships and give a detailed training programme which will be continued by Rob Yule. In addition we are looking at programmes to help our coaches and we will be having a felicitation ceremony on Friday for the national team that finished runners up at the Asiad with cash awards for all the players.”