Rugby talk with Siva

Foreign rugby players out - a welcome move

THE Sri Lanka Rugby Union's decision to keep foreign players out of local rugby is welcome and has been hailed by the rugby enthusiasts who have the interests of promoting local rugby talent at heart.

Foreign players were brought mainly from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga at great expense during the nineties and again during the last few years and they played at pivotal positions mainly for the clubs to win matches.

This was resorted to by affluent clubs. But this caught up with the Army, Air Force and Police. To the credit of the Navy they did not indulge in this.

Foreign players when playing in key positions such as fly half, centres, and flankers dominated the clubs and their team-mates became dependent on them to win matches and became passengers.

But the same teams when playing without the foreigners became mediocre sides without any attraction as the local players have been deprived of playing in vital positions due to the presence of the foreign players.

Even the standard of our national sides started to deteriorate due to this as foreigners are not permitted to represent the national side and when the local players are slotted into the key positions they find it difficult to perform effectively in these positions as foreign players have been imported to play in these positions during the entire local tournaments.

Now that the foreign players are prohibited from playing for local clubs the local talent will have a chance to excel in the key positions and this will help the national side.

Another factor is that with several schools taking to rugby, the foreign players were an impediment to young schoolboy players playing in key positions and blossoming into top rugby players due to which most of them had to cut short their rugby career.

Now with foreign players out we are sure to see good rugby players excelling in club rugby like in the good old days when he had Ago Paiva, Mohan Sahayam, Nimal Maralande and Glen Van Langenberg, as fly halves and Kavan Rambukwella, M. A. Majeed, Jeff Rutnam, Michael Jayasekara and P. L. Munasinghe as centres. This will also help the national side.

What is more important than foreign players is getting down foreign coaches to first train our local coaches and then coach our rugby players. Today we do not have many qualified coaches training our rugby players. But our coaches are past players who coach with their playing experience.

This is not good enough as the coaching has changed today at the international level and we should get the IRB to send qualified coaches to Sri Lanka to teach our coaches the modern methods of coaching.

In the years gone-by, during the sixties, the Rugby Union got down coaches such as Ian Bier, who was followed by Ray Williams, the famous Welsh coach.

They visited all the clubs and conducted seminars and coaching sessions and this helped the clubs to play exciting and innovative rugby. Then came in the seventies Alan Roache who was an authority on mini rugby and I functioned as his coordinator during his coaching stint.

He conducted coaching clinics for juniors at Royal College grounds for several days which was attended by students from all Colombo schools. He also went to Kandy and spread the gospel of mini rugby to all the hill country students and this helped them to learn the fundamentals of rugby at an early age.

All these three coaches came here with the cooperation and courtesy of the British Council and were looked after by the Rugby Union. All the local clubs too helped the Union by entertaining these coaches for socials and dinners which they enjoyed very much in addition to their coaching.

It is not too late for the Rugby Union to organise foreign coaches to come to Sri Lanka to conduct coaching clinics for the clubs so that the players and coaches will be updated in the latest coaching methods.

The clubs can spend the money which they were wasting on foreign players on these coaches and help the Union to cushion the expenses.

Rugby in the United Kingdom is played during winter after October and now being the off season most of the English rugby coaches will be only too happy to spend a few days in Sri Lanka coaching our coaches and rugby players.

I hope the Rugby Union gets in touch with the IRB and arrange for a few coaches to come to Sri Lanka during this season on coaching missions so that rugby which is on the downward trend could pick up.