Ravin Duplessis, International coach and Sri Lanka’s one time national coach who was at the Hong Kong 7s gives his considerations on the Tuskers performances.
I had time to pop in at the Marcopolo Hotel in Harbour City -HK, where all the sevens teams stayed and had a coffee with our local coach Nilfer Ibrahim. The next day Sri Lanka had a training session against the NZ Sevens team.
On field, Sri Lanka deserve to be represented at the IRB 7s event in Hong Kong having competed fiercely in the Asian sevens series to end 3rd in Asia. However, if you look at the teams contending in this extravaganza most of them are full time professionals. Sri Lanka needs clear pathways and proper planning in order for them to compete at this level.
Lack of conditioning, nutrition and strength was a huge reason for Sri Lanka not being competitive. On top of that, the coach needs a lot more time to prepare a team for a tournament of this nature as this is the pinnacle of World rugby. In the opening match against Kenya, there seemed to be signs of stage fright; either the size and power of the Kenyans put Sri Lanka off, or the early loss of Shenal Dias who got injured took the wind off their sails. It could even be that the island team was overawed by the situation and the crowd which turned out to be around 48000 on the opening night. Whatever the reasons, Sri Lanka was not aligned in the opening match and by time they got to ball to hand the decision making went haywire due to the pressure Kenya put them under.
Against Fiji it was expected to be one sided and it was. The good thing about the World sevens tournaments is, the minor teams always get the best support and it showed when Sri Lanka played against Samoa and Portugal and scored some long ranging tries, where the crowd went berserk behind them. I guess our team needs to be judged against their performance of the last two games which reflect their ability in speed, vision, off-loading and an appetite to attack -thats the way the Sri Lanka team is best known for playing; an entertaining brand of rugby.
I spoke to some of the players after the game and they realise that it was never easy to compete at this level without proper preparation time and resources. If we take a team like Portugal which we should match physically and mentally, we still come short at the end. In saying that Portugal have played in the World circuit for the last 5 years and their players have developed well over the years. I guess our performances were not consistent and at times our tactics played in to the hands of the opposition but I am sure the players will learn from this experience.
At the end, the Sri Lanka team became the crowd favourites and maybe in time we can become Asia’s top team in 7s. Japan qualify for the next two sevens circuits with four foreigners included in their team. Hong Kong have three local players in a squad of 12 players and both Hong Kong and Japan are full time professionals.
Visiting Hong Kong Sport Institute and looking at their research athlete programs you know their athletes will profit in the near future with the scientific research and investment they put into sport.
However Hong Kong’s player pool rest on expats as they fill most of their teams and maybe its a way Sri Lanka can become the sleeping giants in SEVENS if we include foreigners in our national team with our current players? Just a thought….
ThePapare.com expresses gratitude to Mr Du Plessis for freely sharing his thoughts on the matter.
