Rugby talk with Siva
 

Rugby development lacks quality

The outgoing President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union, Mohan Balasuriya in his farewell speech at the Annual General Meeting held two weeks back stated that there should be quality in the rugby development and not quantity as we have the numbers. He also went on to state that due to this, the development programme had not produced the desired results.

The rugby development which had been undertaken for more than a decade is funded by the International Rugby Board solely for the purpose of developing rugby in the Provinces and has not produced any outstanding rugby players of national stature in spite of the large amounts of monies spent.

The present nucleus of rugby players doing service to the national side is either from the Colombo Clubs or from the Kandy Clubs with Police, Army, Air Force and Navy contributing their share.

This is mainly due to the Provincial Union not having taken steps to form Clubs like in Colombo and the Hill country with all the facilities such as grounds, Club houses and other infrastructure so that rugby could be nurtured among school leavers in the provinces to further their rugby careers.

Even the development officers appointed by the Rugby Union to handle coaching in the provinces are not qualified rugby coaches but those who have played in the A Division and B Division tournaments for the Clubs and Services and who are in retirement.

This is inadequate as they are not qualified coaches who have followed the Level 2 and Level 3 coaching programmes conducted by the International Rugby Board, which is recognized in all countries as a basic requirement for coaching.

The Union should also monitor the work of the development officers periodically and their work assessed and they should be given a programme of work with targets defined.

But I am reliably informed that this is not happening. The development officers are said to be working independently without any proper coordination with the Union.

The development officers conduct coaching sessions in the schools with the Physical Training Instructors and they in turn impart what they have learnt to the School children at the Schools in the Provinces. Regular tournaments are conducted at Provincial level but this has not had any impact on the improvement of Rugby at national level.

It is also hilarious to see Women Physical Training Instructresses too participating in these rugby training programmes and pictures appearing in the papers where they are seen receiving Coaching Certificate at the end of the programme. One wonders how much these ladies can contribute to the imparting of rugby knowledge as regards handling the ball, passing the ball, running with the ball and kicking leave alone tackling.

With this type of development the game of rugby will not stand to benefit in the provinces and the monies spent will be a poor investment.

During the fifties and sixties the up-country teams such as Kandy, Dimbulla, Dickoya, Uva, Kellany Valley and Kandy Lake Club played in the Clifford Cup, which was the major rugby tournament in the island.

They played brilliant rugby as they had the expatriates and locals who were from the best of rugby playing schools. But today only Kandy plays in the major tournaments. Dimbulla and Dickoya have been relegated to the lower division tournaments.

Uva and Kandy Lake Club do not play any rugby. Kelani Valley has become an "also played" rugby Club. What the Union should do is to develop rugby in these Clubs, which have the ground facilities, Club house facilities and all the infrastructure by providing more money from the development programme so that they could again play rugby at the highest level along side the leading clubs such as CR & FC, CH & FC, Havelocks, Kandy, Police, Army and Air Force as in the past.

This will give more opportunities for the School leavers and planters in Colombo and the Hill Country to continue their rugby career from which the national team could benefit.

In the recent past some rugby enthusiasts in Kandy formed the Old Trinitians Rugby Club and the Kandy Youth Rugby Club, which attracted several leading schoolboy rugby players, and these two teams participated in all the major tournaments.

But after a few years these two teams could not carry on due to financial problems. In Kurunegala too a new rugby Club was formed with all the fanfare and they did well for several years. But this Club wound up after few seasons for reasons unknown.

In Colombo too a new rugby Club known as Peterson Sports Club was formed by some past rugby players from Colombo south and this Club qualified to play in the A Division tournaments having played well in the B Division and qualified.

In the A Division too this Club did well to defeat the senior Clubs. They even competed with the other big Clubs by importing foreign players from Fiji and Tonga. But today rugby in this Club is history due to internal squabbles.

The Union should encourage these Clubs in Kandy, Kurunegala and Colombo to again activate themselves and play in the major tournaments so that schoolboy rugby players leaving schools could continue their rugby career.

The development officers should also be made to visit all the Clubs that have been registered with the Rugby Union through the Provincial Unions, who are not actively participating in rugby and assist the Clubs by providing School boy rugby players from the Provinces so that these Clubs too could participate in the tournaments conducted in the Provinces and by the Rugby Union.

Priyantha injured

Priyantha Ekanayake the new President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union and former Sri Lankan rugby Captain was injured whilst playing for the Ex Sri Lanka players against a Puffins RFC team consisting of expatriates living in Sri Lanka played at Longden Place last Saturday to raise funds for the Tsunami victims. Sri Lankans won 29 - 12.

Priyantha is warded at the Nawaloka Hospital with face and neck injuries and is under the good care of Dr. Maiya Gunasekera, a former President of the Rugby Union and a great name in local rugby. Priyantha is set to be recovering very fast and should be out of the hospital soon.

Second Singer Sevens Circuit tournament postponed

The second Singer Sevens Circuit Tournament sponsored by Singer Sri Lanka Limited which was to have been played at Longden Place and Havelock Park on the 12th & 13th March 2005 have been postponed for September and October 2005 due unavailability of grounds.