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by A. C. DE SILVA

Mohan Balasuriya - the newly elected President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union is a practical thinking man.

The former star 'hooker' is a person with full of ideas to improve the standard of the game in the country. But, without trying to 'build castles in the air', he showed in no uncertain manner that he intends to start from the bottom and gradually climb up the ladder of success when he spoke at the sponsorship meeting of the SLRFU held last Wednesday. Caltex have sponsored the inter-club league and knockout rugby for four years and they will continue to do so till 2005.

"We have a great deal of work to do and in the process we have also to rectify the shortcomings and put the house in order," was Mohan Balasuriya's first comments.

Rugby Football is made up of many factors - players, referees, touch judges, spectators and the media and all of them contribute in no small measure to take the game forward. They all contribute a great deal and I value their contributions a lot." - Mohan Balasuriya said, and added: "We all must put in a collective effort to develop the game at all levels."

He said that the development programme of the SLRFU in the outstations is going at a pace in Wayamba, Sabaragamuwa, Galle. There is a lot of work being done.

However, Balasuriya said that the club structure right now, is not sound. The player base has to be increased and more tournaments at district level, provincial and inter-provincial level have to be increased, so that more players will get involved in the game and with the numbers, the quality of the game naturally will improve.

He said that up to now not much attention has been paid to women's rugby football. "But the girls have shown tremendous potential. We must explore all possibilities of having a separate organisation for women's rugby. At the recent Hong Kong International Tournament, the Sri Lanka women's team performed better than the men. So, it is good to encourage the girls to play rugby," Balasuriya added.

Speaking on rugby football in general, SLRFU boss said that they are in the process of putting on a professional structure to broad-base the game in the country. "No individual will be bigger than the game," he said.

This year, Galle pulled out of the Caltex 'A' division tournament because they could not maintain the players. The 'A' division tournament will be given a 'new look' from this year as the major game each week will be telecast live on ITN so that the majority of enthusiasts in the outstations will be given the opportunity of watching quality games and thereby get drawn into rugby football.

This is a major step to be taken by the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union and with the interest that is sure to be propped up, there is bound to be more teams in the future. It has been noted that among the women, the city women have so far not taken to the game with a bang, but the young girls and women in the outskirts of the country have taken to the game in a big way and with the game becoming very popular, the SLRFU will make all efforts to rope in the city women to play the game.

Foreign players had played prominent roles in the success of clubs in former years. But, this was stopped last year, but the SLRFU boss Balasuriya said that two foreign players will be allowed to play for any club this season at any given time. Two foreign players will be allowed to be in a side on the field at any given time and any others will be allowed to be on the sidelines. Kandy Sports Club have made arrangements to have two players and the Army too are keen to have foreign players. The other clubs have so far not made known their intentions about foreign players.

Vajira Abeysinghe - Head of Sales and Marketing of Caltex said that they entered the sponsorship campaign of the SLRFU is the year 2000 and that they are indeed happy to extend the sponsorship till the year 2005.

He said that he was happy with the progress made by the SLRFU and that was why Caltex had no hesitation of extending the sponsorship.

Abeysinghe also said that the promotional campaign for rugby football is going at a pace with Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited teaming up with Caltex in conducting competitions for the players, like the best player, best forward, best three-quarter and best team so that there will be interest among the players.

He said that sports and Caltex has always gone hand in hand and Caltex's close association with other sports such as motor racing has contributed in a big way in maintaining one of the largest racing teams and they also encourage new talent too.

Caltex also sponsors SSC at cricket and the SSC has the most number of players in the Sri Lanka team for the past six years.

School boxing and Indoor cricket are two other sports that Caltex freely gives their support.

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