Sports

Sports

Cross-overs – hullabaloo and the rugby season begins
By Vimal Perera
The season of rugby 2006 has commenced with the “Singer” professional sevens being worked out yesterday and today. Thirty two teams scrummed down at Longdon Place and the Colombo University grounds. Clubs which offered to field as much as three teams have been rejected as there have been many new comers, a good number and augurs well for the game. The sevens a forerunner to the season is played in Colombo with another expected to be played in Galle in February. The intention was to have more exposure prior to the Hong Kong Sevens and the Commonwealth games.

Has this expectation materialized? Or has it had a reverse effect. The question is whether the clubs have concentrated more to win the tournament with prize money on offer? The prize money means more to players and will be a boost to the game. Has this resulted in non release of players for National Pool Practice? Yes and no seem to be the answers.

With something new being done there can always be the possibility of a reverse effect. Issues of this nature need to be discussed and suitable solutions worked out. When the players have greater financial benefit playing for the club than for the country they will have to listen to the club. The club too expects to win tournaments when they have incurred expenditure on players. All however seem to end with people involved willing to listen and discuss. There has been consensus among the clubs and the union that players will be made available for National practice after the end of this week.

What about the next week when clubs have to practice for the next leg?
The better the national team performs the better will be the attention to rugby. This will mean demand for the game and more spectators and more interest from sponsors. Which in turn will result in more money being available for rugby? This is a fact that will have to be understood and the union should discuss and arrive at acceptable solutions in order that there will be winners all round. The union needs the clubs and the clubs need the union. There can be no two systems working in isolation,

There may be a need to revisit and review development plans. It may be necessary to invest some funds for development of the players at the top level. Development is not necessarily expansion of the game to all corners. It also means there should be emphasis on improving the quality of those at the higher level. When they do better there will also be a growing interest which will have a trickle down effect to other areas of the game.

If players are contracted and compensated adequately they will have an interest in their master. In this instance the Union who looks after the national team. Similarly if the clubs benefit from the union they too will have an obligation to serve the requirements of the governing body. In this you cannot help if the better performing clubs get more from the kitty. If not what incentive is there for them to improve.

The provinces and or the clubs may take a cue from what is happening in Fiji, masters of the sevens. In Fiji there are many sevens tournaments being played. In most cases it is the players who get together and form teams and get the prize money. Here are no clubs involved as teams. Maybe some of them organize the tournaments. They too benefit from the gate. Players practice and play in all corners.

They turn out to be sevens masters. We too could get more and more such tournaments going. In Fiji to some of them it is their sole source of income. You may take cue from cricket which is played in the streets at times. Even a tree is enough for a stump. These are methods of making the game more popular and take it to the masses and see the day when they use a coconut instead of a ball playing alongside the paddy fields. Sevens, fresh legs on the park and changed thinking can do wonders.

As all these happen the news is of crossovers. It is not of the politicians changing sides but of rugby players. Talk is of some deciding to call for services of players to come and enjoy the more salubrious climate of the hills. Rumour is that the Maitland Crescent Club among others may lose some of their players. This will go on as long as the clubs do not have a system of paying the releasing club.

The clubs are now actively involved in the process of management of the union. There was lot of discussion and some new ideas being accepted after the last congress. It may be opportune for the clubs together with the union to formulate a system of player transfer. There has to be consensus, consultation and compromise to avert chaos.

Top