SLR broadens Club Rugby 7s with more teams
An opportunity to clubs with less exposure to clash against the big ones
Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) will open doors to teams other than the top division clubs as it makes arrangements to conduct the Inter-Club 7s Tournament on September 30 and October 1 and 2 at the Racecourse ground in Colombo. The SLR Club 7s is usually conducted with the participation of the eight Division I teams – namely Kandy SC, CR&FC, CH&FC, Havelocks, Navy SC, Police SC, Army SC and Air Force SC.
But this season, the Club 7s will consist teams from Provincial Unions, the Plantation sector, Universities and school teams of old boys as SLR expects to draw 16 teams in total, in addition to the six women’s teams who will compete in a different segment.
However SLR is yet to attract a sponsor for its important 7s competition, which comes to life after a lapse of two years due to reasons such as the pandemic and the political crisis. With the recent success of the Sri Lanka 7s Men’s team at the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham, SLR is of the view that the country has the potential to compete at world stage, but “should dominate region on its way to the top”.
“This tournament will serve as the selection trial to pick the Men’s and Women’s squads for the upcoming Asian 7s Series. We already have a strong team, but still we must adhere to the criteria and requirements of the Ministry of Sports in team selections,” stated Hamza Hidayatullah, the Executive Director of SLR.
Identified as Sri Lanka’s only opportunity to come among the top rugby playing nations, 7s rugby was to be given priority over the traditional 15s. Programmes and projects were drawn over 10 years ago, yet as at present SLR has failed to trigger a cemented project to put Sri Lanka beyond the Asian 7s Series.
“We very well know that 7s is the version we should be really focusing on, but must also keep in mind that 15s is the core source. We still cannot afford to maintain a separate National 7s squad, because these same set of players are our playmakers in both versions. But we must start somewhere, and those plans SLR had for many past years should be given a kick-start at some point. I think this should be the start,” Group Captain Nalin de Silva, the Deputy President of SLR, also a member of Sri Lanka 7s team that won the Bowl title at Hong Kong 7s in 1984, said.
With short and long term plans in place, SLR intends to spark its tardy mission of installing a National 7s squad where players may come under contracts, will begin with the Inter-Club 7s which happens in a fortnight. These plans are laid eyeing the top position at the now-delayed Asian Games, which has been postponed for 2023 and an impressive run at the Paris Olympics.
“These are plans which should have been activated many years ago, but we all know the reason behind SLR’s competition draught during the past two years. Those restrictions caused by the pandemic will be somewhat followed by they won’t totally effect our upcoming season. We intend to start off our projected plans with the upcoming competition,” Hidayatullah added. Upon completion of the Inter-Club 7s Tournament, SLR will pick the two national 7s sides – men and women – perhaps with some new additions and new entrants from the previous squads that represented the country at Birmingham few months ago. These squads will undergo training sessions before being pruned down and finalised for the upcoming Asian 7s Series that will take place during the last week of October and two weekend of November in Bangkok, Kazakhstan and United Arab Emirates respectively.