HARFA reunites rugby family

By Srian OBEYESEKERE

RUGBY: For the rugby family, which has not tasted the best of times of late, its coming together last Wednesday at the Excel World's ballroom down T.B. Jayah Mawatha, was a moment to cherish under the patronage of the oldest living former Rugby Union President Summa Navaratnam, now touching 83 years.

For, as these men, both past and present acknowledged in unison the launching of the Hisham Abdeen Rugby Football Academy (HARFA) had in a long, long-time brought a family reunion of men who had served the game loftily in days gone by. The heralding of this finishing school of rugby was greeted as a timely measure. A past player of yore like Abdeen had fullfileld a long felt need which in fact should have been a task fulfilled by the game's governing body - the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Academy (SLRFU).

The launch fittingly had one of Hisham's former Sri Lanka colleagues Chandrishan Perera doing the honours with the mike as compere.

If Chandrishan lit up the day with his rugby talk, the chief guest Summa Navaratnam belied his age as the fitness fanatic, who had coached Hisham and Chandrishan, went down memory lane of the forceful player that Hisham was, and a man who for discipline was a role model to aspiring players.

"As a player if he disagreed with anything, he would move to the background without hurting anyone which was proved when the Sri Lanka 7s team was in Hong Kong. On finding Hisham missing in his 5-star hotel room, the whole team was agitated and we found him in one of the back streets of Hong Kong in a modest Indian eating house having a massive plate of rice and curry because he could not eat the wholesome meals provided at the hotel.

This is Hisham, quite unobtrusive and without complaint satisfying himself in his own way," said Summa who as an ex-coach, advised Hisham that his academy needed to focus on young'uns health which "must importantly be monitored regularly, particularly during physical training."

"Before coming to the actual rugby ball handling skills, the children must be taught the correct way to walk, run, some of them may be pigeon toed, some duck toed, hands and legs flying all over and the body posture all cockeyed. This will be the best age to correct these faults starting from 8 years upwards so that they can improve their playing ability when they come to the running, passing and kicking stage," Summa advised Hisham.

Navaratnam said that the academy had the role to improve players' physical skills and above all the character of the individual student.

He stressed that when wealth, is lost, nothing is lost, but when health is lost - something is lost and when character is lost everything is lost. Summa paid Hisham Abdeen a glowing tribute when he said, "After all, we are all here to felicitate the launch of a rugby academy. But we would not be here today if not for one lad (Hisham) wittingly or unwittingly breaking the basic rule of a game. He would have been taken to task by masters-in-charge and coaches for this misdemeanour. But what? He founded a new game."

Y.C. Chang, another ex-president of the SLRFU saw the endeavour of Hisham manning a coaching academy from his playing days, when he was conspicuously a fortress in standing in the way of international giants, as a way forward for the sport in entering a new phase.

"In fact, I'm happy that Hisham Abdeen is stepping in to achieve something eclipsing the SLRFU," was how Chang saw the bold venture at tapping latent talent.

The occasion marked in today's young stars from the Sri Lanka team taking in every word uttered by Summa Navaratnam and a host of other ex-rugby stalwarts enliven the day with their educative rugby talk. It was fittingly a day the young savoured the moment that saw them mingle with a past generation of heavyweights like Arjun Dharmadasa, Anton Benedict, Dr. Maiya Gunasekera, Lionel Almeida, Malik Samarawickrema, H.K. Sisira, Nalin Silva and a host of others in a sparkle of what the future offered through HARFA.

The day would not have been perfect but for the co-ordinating effort of Ivo Keerthipala who is one of Hisham's handpicked directors to man HARFA.

Aspiring young ruggerites could get in touch with Hisham on 0777-311788 or at Havelocks Sports Club where his academy is based.