Rugby: Viper Gunaratne’s mission in taking the Adivasis to the game

Nihal Gunaratne, fondly known as Viper in the domestic Rugby circuit, along with his team of coaches was in Mahiyanganaya on Tuesday (17) to conduct a coaching programme on behalf of Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU). 

Their objective was to conduct the ‘Get Into Rugby’ programme, an initiative of International Rugby Board (IRB), targeting schools that are totally strange to the game of Rugby. 

The target was to accustom schoolchildren, especially girls, of five selected schools from the area to the sport. 

Their final destination of the programme was the school in Dambana, where majority of local indigenous children attend. Soon after the programme Viper and his team of coaches spotted a group of ‘Adivasis’ keenly watching the goings-on. 

This gave Viper an idea. Without further double thoughts, he chose to bite the group of indigenous youth, mostly in their twenties, with a portion of Rugby. 

“There were around 10 to 12 youths watching the proceedings with great interest. Even their body language and reactions indicated that they were keen to try Rugby out. But they were backward. We had Pradeep Karunaratne, the SLRFU coordinator for Mahiyanganaya, with us and he spoke to the chief of the Adivasis, who willingly helped us. Then somehow we managed to get them to touch a rugby ball first,” Viper, a former flanker who represented Sri Lanka, Kandy Sports Club and St. Anthony’s College, said. 

In Oceania countries, namely New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, Rugby is represented by mainly players of their respective indigenous clans. 

But in Sri Lanka the indigenous clan is famous for hunting, done mainly by bow and arrow, which relates to the sport archery. 

There were previous occasions when officials of Sri Lanka Cricket tried to introduce cricket to them, which has an obvious following among the clan. 

But Viper stated that these sarong-clad youth naturally had the flair for Rugby.

“I wanted to unleash their instinct somehow and what I did was grab a ball and run and told them to catch me if anyone is willing to. Then came out this lad, Kadira, who chased me but I managed to side-step him twice. But not the third time, I was in his clutches,” a playmaker during his days, sadly for holding him up, yet with immense joy to get a go from the adivasi youngsters, stated.

Enjoying the happiest moment of their otherwise successful coaching programme, Viper and his team was soon giving the group of adivasi youths an orientation of Rugby with the help of Karunaratne, who acted mostly as an interpreter at this point. 

Within hours Rugby was not a stranger for the indigenous youths. 

“Then willingly came out this chap, named Kaluwa, who had played and captained cricket at regional level, to teach his fellow members the game. We got Karunaratne to coordinate with them and appointed Kaluwa as the trainer under his observation. It took very little time to form a team where the skipper appointed was none other than Kaluwa, who had earlier watched a Rugby game at Pallekele and was adamantly saying that he has the will to cross that line (try line) where there are two tall iron posts, even if there were five men hanging on him,” a beaming Viper said.
 
“According to Kaluwa there are more youngsters in the clan, who could be brought into the team, but weren’t there as they have gone hunting into the jungle. We gave them 10 Rugby balls, the allotted amount we give away to each school, and put them under the safe hands of Karunaratne, who will update the SLRFU often on the development. Being a player myself and now a coach, I had never felt this much happier in my life than that day. My target is to feature these boys at a Sevens tournament within three months and I’m sure they will impress others then, as they did to me,” he possessed.      

With an unexpected mission being accomplished Viper was very mush satisfied with the success of the whole day-long programme of Get Into Rugby. 

The programme was conducted for over 11 Physical Training Instructors and 426 girls and boys from the Mahiyanganaya District in the Uva Province. 

The series took place at the Mahiyanganaya National School ground from 8.30am to 2.00pm with the participation of schoolchildren from Mahiyangana National School, Orubendiwewa Central, Bandaranayake Central Mapakadawewa, Giradhurukotte Central and Dambana National School. 

“The objective of this programme is to introduce Rugby to non-playing schools. We gave them 10 balls each, booklets, CDs, drills training and the basics of how to handle the ball, how to run and important things like that. This is an initiative to get them to the game and engage in it as they do with cricket and football. We don’t want them to just rise up to the top and then disappear into thin air. It’s about getting to know about the game, play it casually and then stay in the game. We will gradually get these youngsters into the stream and have them in competitions within 10 years. Our target is to cover some 10,000 such schools,” elaborating on his and the team’s role, Viper said. 

The progamme, which runs under the supervision of SLRFU’s Executive Director Rohan Gunaratne and Women’s Development Manager Tanuja Kulatunge, was assisted by well known school coaches from Colombo and Kandy. 

The SLRFU plans to cover all parts of the island with a comprehensive feedback and coordinating network, where trained Physical Training Instructors from the respective areas will be put in-charge as Rugby trainers and coaches.