Ten countries confirm their participation at Rugby Asiad

Ranjeeva Seneviratne

RUGBY: Ten countries have confirmed their participation in the Singer Rugby Asiad which will be worked off in Colombo from November 3 to 10, 2007.

China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Qatar, Chinese Taipei, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Iran have confirmed participation in this biggest event in the Asian rugby calendar while Asian heavyweights Japan and Korea along with Hong Kong, Singapore and Arabian Gulf are yet to confirm their participation.

The President of the SLRFU DIG Nimal Lewke speaking at a press briefing held at the Galadari Hotel on Wednesday said that the Rugby Asiad is being held in Sri Lanka after seventeen years. It will be the last Asiad as the ARFU decided to conduct the tournament on a different format from next year.

We were able to convince the countries to take part in the Asiad at the last council meeting in Brunei. He hoped that the other five countries too would confirm their participation and they hoped to have at least 12 countries taking part in the Singer Rugby Asiad which will be worked off at CR grounds, Havelock Park and Royal Sports Complex.

Sri Lanka sevens team performed extremely well at the Singer-Sri Lankan Rugby Sevens and he was happy that Sri Lankan rugby was heading in the right direction with the support of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and other officials, he was confident of making the Rugby Asiad a tremendous success and paid a glowing tribute to Singer (Sri Lanka) Ltd for coming forward to sponsor this mega event.

The Chairman of Singer Sri Lanka Ltd. Hemaka Amarasuriya said that he was happy at the progress of Sri Lanka rugby as they put up a fine display at the Singer-Sri Lankan Rugby Sevens.

The Singer Rugby Asiad will be a boon to rugby fans in sri Lanka who are starved of International rugby. Looking at the teams which have so far confirmed their participation Sri Lanka has a good chance of winning the Rugby Asiad. The best reward for the sponsor will be for the Sri Lanka team to win this tournament.

Singer will continue to promote rugby in a big way as Sri Lankan Rugby has shown vast improvement during the last three years and in conclusion wished the SLRFU and Sri Lanka team all success in this prestigious tournament.

The CEO of SLRFU Dilroy Fernando said that it was a great honour for Sri Lanka to host the Rugby Asiad after 17 years.

This is the last time the Asiad will be held as the ARFU hopes to conduct the tournament on a different format from next year. Ten countries have already confirmed their participation and he was confident that the other five countries would do so within the next two weeks.

He said Singer Sri Lanka will be the main sponsor with Mobitel and Toyota as the co-sponsors. The teams will be put up at Galadari Hotel while the product sponsors will be Zeppelin, Hemtours, Casilan 90, SriLankan Airlines, John Keels Holdings, Excel World and Addidas International referees will officiate in the tournament while journalists from several countries will be coming to Sri Lanka to cover the event.