Rugby stalwarts critical of Lankan performance

“If we had played as a team, we could have accomplished much more at the Hong Kong Sevens tournament”, said Nishantha Chanaka Assistant Coach of the Sri Lankan side that suffered four massive defeats against England, Samoa and Canada in the group stages. And then just to rub salt in the proverbial wound, Sri Lanka got thumped by 53 points to nil in the bowl quarter final by relative new comers to rugby --Russia..

The post-mortem has begun of Sri Lanka’s disastrous performance and there are already fears that the team may not get an invitation to participate at next year’s tournament. Chanaka added; “There were maybe two or three players who played well. But everybody knows that rugby is a team game. Especially in the sevens format, the whole team has to gel. The bottom line is that some of the players were not making their tackles and with out the resulting turn over ball you cannot score. Ideally we should have had five forwards and seven backs. Instead we were given ten backs and two forwards. We were lucky in that none of the two got injured. Had that happened the score line would have been bigger. Had we had the right combination we could have reduced the margin of defeats in the group stages. And probably even beaten Russia who we have defeated earlier in a sevens tournament held in the Arabian Gulf. The Assignment Coach Riviri Mako told us later that he had made an error in the calculations.”

The Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) also brought down Kiwi trainer Keith Roberts. He submitted his evaluation report to Selection Committee. Around five players who made it to the final squad were near the bottom in terms of fitness, a player who was not even on the report and another who was carrying an injury. Thus the ball was literally passed back to SLRFU’s Selection Committee headed by Brigadier Jupana Jayawardena and comprising of Graham Raux, Savantha De Saram, Lanil Tennakoon and Norman Silva.

When The Sunday Times spoke to Jayawardena he said; “Yes I was the signed the selected final twelve. We did take in to consideration the report done by Roberts. But subsequent reports revealed that the fitness of the players selected had improved. As for the injured player, he was taken to two other doctors who said he was fit to play. I believe that we failed to perform up to expectations because we had only three and a half weeks of training. Other teams play on the World Sevens circuit and prepare for months. If we were playing on the sevens circuit, perhaps the results would have been different. Also you have to take in to consideration that Sri Lankans are small in stature in comparison to their opponents.”

He added; “In sevens rugby backs can play as forwards. That was the combination requested for by coach Mako and after much deliberations, we decided to go with the squad we did. As for what happened at the tournament itself I cannot comment because I have yet to see the tapes and receive the report from the coach and manager.”

Informed sources pointed out the fact that to get on to the World Sevens circuit, Sri Lanka would have to make vast strides instead of going backwards given the fact that it is now 24 years since Sri Lanka won for the first and the last time – the bowl trophy at the Hong Sevens.

In1984 Hisham Abdeen led a Lankan team comprising of Saman Jayasinghe, Nalin De Silva, Chula Dharmadasa, the late Hubert Ryan, C. P. P. Abeygunawardena, Len De Silva, Rohantha Peiris and Chandrishan Perera. Abdeen said; “We played for pride because we were representing Sri Lanka. Coached by Jeff Rutnam our commitment was total and we played as one unit. In the league we narrowly lost to eventual champions Fiji and Japan before beating a strong Papua New Guinea team in the bowl final. Japan also had a very strong time and they lost only in extra time to Australia in the Plate Final. At that time we were only allowed nine players instead of the twelve that is permitted today. We had three forwards.”

The mid eighties saw Sri Lankan rugby hit a purple patch and make Abdeen a certain candidate for a Hall of Fame had Sri Lanka had one. With coach Ajith Abeyratne, Abdeen proved that as long as the captain could motivate the players anything was possible as led a group of virtual freshers to bowl final in 1986, thus dismissing the misconception that the majority of the players should have loads of experience. Sri Lanka reached the same stage the following year. With the legendary Anton Benedict as coach one could almost say that Sri Lanka Seven’s rugby reached its peak in 1988 when Abdeen led the national team to the Cup Semi finals in the Dubai Sevens.

Thus now it remains to be seen what the selectors will do with the ball that is firmly planted in their back yard.