Nimal Lewke wastes no time, gets things moving at SLRFU

by Lal Gunasekera

RUGBY FOOTBALL: The newly elected President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) DIG Nimal Lewke, has already set in motion new plans with the Council members who met for the first time after his election last Tuesday at the SLRFU headquarters.

One of the decisions taken was 'to go' for a high profile coach from overseas and contact has been made with Rob Yule, the Development Manager of the Taranaki Province RFU of New Zealand in this regard. DIG Lewke is also in touch with the authorities in Australia and is determined to get 'somebody with a good reputation.'

Speaking to the Sunday Observer DIG Lewke, who also heads the elite Special Task Force (STF) of the Police, said that the Caltex League Championship this year (2007) will see the top 10 sides playing ;like the old system' and after the first-round the top six teams will play for the Championship and balance four for the Plate.

The 10 teams include Kandy Sports Club, CR&FC, CH&FC, Havelocks, Police, Army, Air Force, Navy, Old Zahirians and Combined Dim-Dicks, Ruhuna RFU or another side like Jawatte Lions.

He said that the 2007 season kicks off with the Radella 7's on February 3 and 4 where they hope to invite the top 10 sides, and the 'B' Division League Championship to be named the Rudra Rajasingham Memorial Cup tournament. The late Rudra Rajasingham, was a former IGP, who was a distinguished old boy of Trinity College (Kandy) and later turned out for CR&FC and Police too. Rajasingham was known as the God Father of Police Rugby.

DIG Lewke also disclosed that the semi-finals of the Caltex Clifford Cup Knock-Out Championship will be worked off at Nittawela and if any club are 'not happy' to play at that particular venue, they could play at the Bogambara Stadium also in Kandy.

It was further disclosed that the President's Trophy tournament for both schools and clubs is to be revived this year after a lapse of several years.

DIG Lewke also said that a four-member committee comprising three past PresidentS of the SLRFU (Y.C. Chang, Lionel Almeida and Malik Samarawickrema) together with Soliticor-General C.R. 'Bulla' de Silva, a former Royal and CR&FC prop forward, has been appointed to 'look into the voting system' at a annual general meeting of the SLRFU.

The Council also decided to completely 'shuffle' the present Development Committee and go into a new system and the abilities of the Development Officer to be looked into. The task is in the hands of Asanga Seneviratne, the present Deputy President of the SLRFU who heads this committee.

The development at schools level too is to be revamped co-ordinated by S.W. Chang, a former Trinity and Havelocks player who turned out to be a top referee too. He was at one stage of Sri Lanka under-19 coach.

Lewke said that the development work will start immediately among the schools and his target was to be No. 3 at the next Youth Rugby World Cup.

They (the SLRFU) are to meet and hold discussions with the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Association (SLSA) soon on this matter and that school games will be worked off during week days this season due to the lack of referees.

It is also learnt that Sri Lanka has been invited to compete at the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International 7's on March 30, 31 and April 1, which is part of the International Rugby Board (IRB) World Series.

Sri Lanka failed to get an invitation for this prestigious event since 2001, but made their re-entry last year (2006), but lost to Australia (0-50) South Korea (5-45), France (5-31) and beat USA (21-17) in the Bowl quarter-final and lost to Chinese Taipei (19-28) in the Cup semi-final.

Apart from Sri Lanka, the other teams from Asia will be Japan, South Korea, China, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong, while the rest of the countries in this 24-nation event will be New Zealand, South Africa, England, Fiji, Samoa, France, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Kenya, Portugal, Scotland, Wales, Russia, USA, Tonga, Italy and Tunisia.