Sri Lanka’s losing pattern continues

By Asanka Gammanpila reporting from Hong Kong

Sri Lanka’s Imran Bisthamin goes for a loose ball while Asean Karthlis and Radhika Hettiarachchi look on during Sri Lanka’s opening match against defending Hong Kong sevens champions Samoa on Friday. Sri Lanka lost to Samoa 35-7. - Picture by Chris Sharrock.

Sri Lanka’s ever too familiar losing pattern at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens continued when they lost their last two group matches to England (47-7) and Canada (53-nil ) in the first round games worked off at the Hong Kong stadium yesterday.

With these two defeats Sri Lanka has lost all three matches in their group. On Friday Sri Lanka lost to Samoa (35-7) and were demoted to the Bowl segment. Now they will play their bowl quarter finals today against Russia.

This time, however, Sri Lanka produced much better rugby fighting their way until the last minute but lost all matches mainly due to lack of strength and size and finding it difficult to stop big made players.

In yesterday's opening game Sri Lanka were outclassed by the strong four time HK 7s winners England 47( six goals and try) points to 7 (one goal). In that game Sri Lanka had only two scoring opportunity.

One finished successfully after Pradeep Liyanage touched down near the post after he received a clean pass from Saliya Kumara who opened the gap to score the try. Radhika Hettiarachchi added the extra points. Another chance was missed near the England touch line due to poor passing. This was intercepted by an England player who ran 95 metres to score.

Then in the game against Canada, once again a one-sided affair, Sri Lanka lost by a massive margin of 53(4 goals and 5 tries) to nil. Sri Lanka played horrible rugby and failed to get any scoring opportunities. This was the only game Sri Lanka had targeted to give a good account of themselves in the first round.

Meanwhile New Zealand who are the favourites to win this year's tournament having being ranked number one in the IRB World Sevens won all their group matches. Strong contenders for this year's Hong Kong Sevens title Fiji, South Africans and England also won their respective games. '