The Sri Lanka Rugby Team suffered three defeats. One was humiliating to say the least against Hong Kong and were demoted. They will now play alongside Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia in the next year’s Division I championship. Korea is tipped to get their break in to the Top Division in the 2012 HSBC Asian Five Nations Tournament.
In the first outing under difficult conditions Sri Lanka adopted well tackling the huge UAE players bang on and even the three quarters on a difficult day under wet conditions and handled the ball well. The two sitter penalties missed in front of the posts cost the Home Team survival in the Top division. In the end the game ended in a 13 all draw.
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| Ellen Meachen |
The second outing was a humiliating against Hong Kong. This drubbing at 48-3 is the worst in the history of Sri Lankan rugby. The local lads were unable to match in any department. The forwards failed to secure good ball and did not even contest in the line outs. The three quarters looked like passengers being miles slower than their opponents who always in the thick of things. There where 7 tries in a total where five of them were scored by the opposing three-quarters. More than anything two of the tries were scored with the opponents breezing through untouched.
Sri Lanka’s third outing was against Kazakhstan in Alamty played under cold conditions as expected. Very surprisingly the lads were hard at practice in Colombo on humid conditions which in no way helped them for this outing. After leading in three quarter moves Sri Lanka went down 34-18 which kept Kazakhstan in the top division and Sri Lanka were demoted.The last outing was against Asian giants Japan who will be representing the Asian Region at the Rugby World Cup from 1987 onwards. It was only the nail in the coffin for Sri Lankan rugby as the Brave Blossoms ran riot at Longdon Place scoring 90 points in a one sided affair.
Speaking to Sunday Times Sri Lankan coach d said. “We had a positive start for the tournament with the team playing some good rugby in conditions we had never trained in the rain. The guys were really good and their attitude was excellent. We as a unit made lot of play. We were very unfortunate not to win even one game.” Meachen accepted that the Hong Kong defeat was the worst in his career as a coach. There were two early tries by the visitors, we battled our way through for the next 40 minutes but could not to find the try line.”
Ellen continued by saying that the game against Kazakhstan was the one that should we should have won to remain in the top division after the early let off against UAE courtesy of two sitter penalties being missed. “Preparation was not so good with the lack of equipment. We led 18-17 with 15 minutes to go, a couple of poor decisions under pressure and 2 missed tackles let Kazakhstan to come back and take control the game.”
“We played well against Japan in the last outing. What’s more we played as a unit. We were even able to lead for more than two minutes of the game. The foundation for the last game, however, was not as rosy as the training equipments and bags came late from the Kazakhstan trip and most of the players were injured as Kazakhstan is good for physical rugby. This left us with a whole lot of new players joining the final pool.”
Meachen ended by saying, “Unfortunately we lost Sean Wijesinghe and Keith Gurusinghe in the early part of the game. Japan is ranked at number 12 in the World and out of the 14 tries 10 of them were scored by foreigners representing Japan. Also if we want to compete in top level we need to bring some young players in their early 20’s and train them with the seniors. If we plan to bring in expatriates they also should qualify for the 3 year IRB (International Rugby) rule to represent a country.Ronny Ibrahim Head Coach of Sri Lanka Navy speaking to Sunday Times said: “No surprise for me. It is pointless to blame the team, They played really hard. All the blame should be taken over by the poor management of the SLRFU.
They failed to select the team on time and the skipper was announced only 7 days before the first game, even the boys were without grounds some days. We should have pulled off a good win against UAE.Former Sri Lanka Sevens Captain Hisham Abdeen said that bringing in foreigners to represent Sri Lanka is a must. The local players will improve by training with them. Only issue will be finding the much needed sponsors. Even the clubs should be allowed to field at least 2 foreigners at a given time.
Sri Lanka’s leading referee Dilroy Fernando said that this would be a super move.
“We tried this when Priyantha Ekanayke was President of the SLRFU and I was the CEO. There are two categories where a player could represent another country. If your grand parents are born in Sri Lanka or you have been residing in Sri Lanka for three years and employed here. We tried the first but we did not get quality players. If we are to be at the top then we need to bring in at least 2 foreigners into the playing 15.”
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