Kandy Times

Top drawer rugby on cards up in Kandy

By Shamseer Jaleel

Come the month of September each year the talk of the town is about the sevens tournament being held in Kandy. That is none other than the discovery and the spirit of the Asian Rugby stars in action at the Nittawela Rugby stadium.

Action during last year’s tournament - Pic by Dinuka Liyanawatte

There will be 12 Asian teams taking part minus Japan who pulled out a week ago citing that their domestic season clashing with this sevens tournament. With Japan the defending champions pulling out the Sri Lankans too have an outside chance of clinching the trophy this year.

Iswan Omar chairman of the organizing committee speaking to The Sunday Times said “12 team from Asia will participate in this Asian Region IRB Satellite event with exciting rugby dished out. This will be a valuable opportunity for our local players to gain the maximum exposure, and it will be a weekend of top drawer rugby dished out up in the hill country. He further disclosed that the next year’s tournament will be worked off in Colombo but the Kandy SC will remain as the organizers of the event. He further said that the sponsors are looking at a possibility of hosting the tournament once year in Kandy and the other in Colombo.

Chandana De Silva Head of Corporate Communication and Marketing SriLankan Airlines and Ashitha Abeysekera Director Marketing of Singer Sri Lanka also spoke at the media briefing.

This event is sponsored by Singer Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Airlines and Connaisance De Ceylan being co sponsors. Once again the tournament will be organized and run by the Kandy Sports Club.

The following are the participating teams

Arabian Gulf, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Kazakhanstan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Phillipnes, India, Pakistanand Sri Lanka.
There will be also 12 school teams battling it out on the 15th in the group matches.

The following are International groupings
Pool A : Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia
Pool B: Taipei, Kazakastan, Phillipines
Pool C: Sri Lanka, Arabian Gulf and Pakistan
Pool D : China, Thailand and India
Schools groupings are as follows with St Anthony’s being the defending champions.
Pool A : St Anthony’s, Science, Ananda
Pool B: Isipathana, Wesley and St Jospeh’s
Pool C: Kingswood, Dharmaraja and Zahira
Pool D : St Peter’s, St Sylvester’s and Vidyartha

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