Yet another pathetic outing for Sri Lankan Sevens Rugby

By Shamseer Jaleel

RUGBY: What a weekend of rugby it was in Hong Kong. The 31st Hong Kong sevens came to an end last week with Samoa beating the much fancied Fijians in a thrilling final in front of a capacity crowd of over 400,000 in Causeway Bay Hong Kong.

It was mouth-watering weekend of rugby as Samoa who showed that their win in Wellington was not a fluke.

This win in Hong Kong for Samoa came after a lapse of 14 years, last winning in 1993 also against the same opponent. With this 27-22 win the Samoans grabbed the handsome prize money of USD 100,000. In the Plate finals Wales edged out Argentina with a try during the last minute of the game. In the Bowl Russia proved that they are no pushovers in sevens rugby when they beat France.

Sri Lankan sevens outfit under Chamara Vithanage had a consistence performance on the opening day.

But the second day they were way below form looking very lethargic and mere passengers and they could not last the full game. They played well in patches specially in the initial half with some threatening moves.

The final day saw the Lankans in the lead at the short breather against the fast runnings Kenyans. But in the end could not last the pace and were well beaten and thrown out of the tournament at the Bowl quarter final stages. With this performance it will be a good guess to wait and see if we will get the visa for the next sevens in Hong Kong 2008.

The stamina and strength of both Scotland and Portugal were far too much for the Lankans.

They were in good shape in the initial half on both games despite of a few hiccups in their defence. But it lasted till only the initial half. The kick off ball, loose play, support play and lasting the full fourteen minutes of the game were the major concerns.

They were a yard slower and lethargic in their approach and did not give one hundred percent effort in the second half which let the flood gates of tries open for the opposition teams. Adding to these concerns they played well below their usual standard, dropping far too many vital passes and never won a single ball on kick off.

Sri Lankan coach Sudath Sampath speaking to the Sunday Observer soon after the game said that he was happy with the performances since he had only four days with the final touring team for the preparations for this tournament.

He further hinted out by saying at least in future the side to be given at least a month prior to the tournament in order to work as one unit to build up the confidence and to understand each other fairly well. Sampath ended by saying that newcomers did very well along with the experienced players. Specially the performance of Ashean Karthelis, Sanjeewa Jayasinghe, Amjad Buksh and Pradeep Liyanage helped us to come to this level".

The skipper of the Sri Lankan outfit Chamara Vithanage told that he was disappointed with the performances.

He ended by saying that "Last time we beat Kenya at the IRB Dubai tournament in 2001 and my expectation was at least to reach the Bowl Semi finals.