A yo-yo display by the Lankan teens
View(s):When the Sri Lankan U19 team made Korea fight all the way going down 28 points to 31 I thought the future for rugby in competing with better teams of Asia is not a dream. Korea had to fight it all the way to register a victory by a narrow margin of 3 points in the ARFU under 19 tournaments which is also a Junior World Cup Qualifying game. This was the second game last Sunday at the Race Course Grounds. Just as much as I thought that Sri Lanka has come of age so did the Sri Lankan Supporters. In the first game Hong Kong pummeled a travel fatigued Chinese Taipei by 44 points to 5. This was evident from the fact that on Wednesday Chinese Taipei had a comfortable win over Korea.
The euphoria of a resurgent Sri Lankan Junior team turned to concern by Wednesday evening as Sri Lanka team that had a good game against Korea went down tamely to Hong Kong by 32 points to 7. This all depends on how serious the juniors are in their quest. This all depends on how well you play as all but Sri Lanka have won a game so far with Hong Kong in the lead winning two games so far.
Sri Lankans after losing the match to Hong Kong seemed more interested to take pictures with their fans whilst victorious Hong Kong was keener to warm down. I suppose for the Lankan lads there was more importance to chill out with the ones who they thought was the love of their life and rugby was not written in that plot. This all boils down to attitude that is needed to face the tough challengers among Asia in the same age group. Once again and more pronounced in this game were the inability to secure and retain the ball and the giving away of penalties.A wise man once wrote “What makes a good player better or a poor player good? Is it the sound basic skills, the Size, Strength, Scoring ability, Speed or could it be perhaps the Attitude – The ability to accept situations and make them work in their favor. Losers never seem to know why they lose. Despite the loss when you seem happy the reason could be that you have been conditioned to accept a loss with a happy face as it was not your mistake. It was the referees, the ground conditions, the training program, the teammates, their coach, etc. So why worry, just say cheese for the picture. That will be a good one to hang on your living room and who cares we lost but the lovable came to see me.
After the Sri Lanka performance in the first match I moaned about the penalty kick from an angle that hit the upright would have made a draw of a match for Sri Lanka. I griped wondering as I could not understand why we never thought of brining out fresh legs on the park and particularly in the second half when Sri Lanka was leading 28 points to 24. After seeing the importance attached to taking photographs even without finishing your post match routine I now wonder whether these players should have a winning performance marked against their names. Because if you do their life is what will be ruined with the attitude they seemed to have. Yet I feel sad for some of those players who played so hard and just like in the Match against Korea tackled the Hong Kong boys to a standstill in the first half until that three try blitz in the first ten minutes of the second half.
Our front row took a lot of pressure from the hard working Korean forwards but played through the game but a change of places would have been good. One cannot say that we did not have replacements because for ten minutes when one of the Sri Lanka prop forwards was sent to sin bin a replacement was made from the bench. Was it the same a gutsy side that took the field and proved the backs were good at making inroad to the opponent’s territory that played against Hong Kong?
It was the same side but Sri Lanka used the full complement of eight substitutes in this match and theoretically they should have played better. That did not happen possibly conforming the thoughts of the coach who depended more on the starting lineup for the match Against Korea. The thoughts expressed on why changes were not made in the first match were because the bench may not play as good as the ones on the park. Ten teams were in the top league were 10 who played 46 league games and with a squad of 25 the numbers playing were 250. Out of this much if you cannot get 25 equally good players which is only 10% of those taking part there is a lot of soul searching that has to be done.
Vimal Perera is a former Rugby Referee, coach and Accredited Referees Evaluator IRB