Sri Lanka aim high at Shanghai Sevens

Anuradha ABEYSEKERA

The Bowl Champions of the Borneo Sevens rugby tournament, Sri Lanka national rugby sevens team arrived in the island Wednesday early morning. The National rugby team, powered by Dialog Axiata PLC did their nation proud at the Borneo Sevens concluded over the weekend by achieving a come from behind victory to emerge Bowl winners.

Local lads, under the captaincy of Srinath Suriyabandara beat Malaysia by 19-12 in the Bowl final overcoming a shocking set back in the first half where the hosting Malaysians were in lead 12-5. Defending Champions and Asian rugby giants Japan won the Cup finals beating Hong Kong and the surprise package of the tournament China won the Cup Championship third place.

Sri Lanka's new national sevens coach Englishman Ben Gollings said that it was a rush preparation as he was assigned the coach just a week ahead to the tournament.

“We were bit disappointed with the team's first day performances, but the boys showed a good improvement in the second day and I am satisfied with their performances. We got a lot of hard work ahead of us before Sri Lanka participate in Shanghai sevens in three weeks time,” Ben explained. He also said that he will focus on fitness and conditioning the players to have a good set up which will help all round in the Shanghai tournament. “The local players have lot of talent and strength but its a matter of playing together as a team and taking the correct decision on the field to bring out their best,” said the new coach.

When asked whether three weeks is enough to prepare for the Shanghai sevens, Ben said hopefully players will improve a lot in next three weeks as he is going to work out on an intensive programme. “Boys know that it'll going to be hard and have to commit a lot, but hard work will be the key to come up with better results in China.

Speaking about the Sri Lanka's standard, Ben pointed out that the local lads had the opportunity to weigh their talents with the strong Japanese team who ultimately won the Cup Championship and they were quite impressive. As Sri Lanka has a long proud rugby history and well established system, it is just a matter of grooming the players and getting them play the right style of rugby to emerge giants in the region.

“I think we can do that and be very competitive, said Ben Gollings.

Sri Lankan skipper Srinath Suriyabandara said that he is happy to bring honour to country with his team and said they will look forward positively to improve a lot under the guidance of Ben Gollings, who is a reputed player and a coach in the international rugby sevens scene.

“We have lot to learn from Ben and we found easy and interesting to work with him. “our players will face the next challenge, the Shanghai event with a strong mentality and will surely improve our rankings, said the jubilant captain.

He also hinted that there will be some changes in the team for China due to lot of player injuries during the Borneo tournament.

“It’s great to see that the faith and belief we put in behind the national squad in coming forward with a sponsorship has been justified in this win. The years to come will no doubt show greater improvements in the game at both National and domestic levels and Dialog will be an integral part of same going forward” said Dialog Axiata PLC Head of Marketing and Brands Irfan Ahmed.

Dialog has pledged their support for both the National and domestic rugby tournaments over the next 5 years as part of their efforts to support and promote rugby as a game for everyone to enjoy in Sri Lanka.