The President of the SLRFU Asanga Seneviratne briefed the media on the details of the A5Nations Division 1 Tournament and future plans of the rugby governing body who also the extended their relationship with Dialog Axiata PLC.
Asanga stated ‘As you are aware we too took over last January and a lot has happened since then, rugby has really made it to the next level, we have seen the crowds come back and our national team perform to their true potential although we failed to qualify for the 7s World Cup and A5 Top Division we came perilously close to doing so, and we hope we can achieve this ambition this year.’
Going forward, the SLRFU have planned out a comprehensive programme for the national team. The team now has two top class permanent coaches in Ravin du Plessis a South African coach who has worked with the Cantebury Crusaders and the Western Province of South Africa and will mainly focus on the 15 a side game. Ben Gollings who is the highest try scorer in 7s rugby to date, having just retired from playing in the national stage will also be assisting in the 15s and will be head coach for the 7s after a successful stint last year where the Tuskers were extremely close in qualifying for the World Cup.
The A5Nations Division 1 Tournament was advanced by one week to avoid the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year and will conclude on the 6th of April. Asanga went on to say that ‘This in some way hindered us in our preparations as we hoped to play UAE on the 30th of March, which now, we will not be able to do.’
However, he added ‘But we are quite confident the team will be very well prepared, they have started training early with three months training and we will be ready for the tournament where he hope to get promoted to the higher division, where we could compete for a World Cup position in the future.’
He went on to acknowledge the support by Dialog who will be sponsoring the A5N Div I Tournament by stating ‘All this work was possible primarily due to the partnership with dialog and the support our sponsor has given us throughout the year, the sponsorship from Dialog was actually fivefold more than the previous sponsorship. Rugby has now come back to being a premier domestic sport in the country. And we will be looking forward to another exciting season this year.’
‘Our rugby expenditure has gone up to over 75 million rupees a year and all this money is being spent on developing rugby, promoting the game and funding the needs of the national team. Rugby now is a full professional set up. This year, Dialog has stepped forward and helped us further by enhancing their sponsorship helping us in our endeavours.’
‘Dialog as a company has helped promoting the game to rural areas; today rugby is played by 90 percent of the rural children and is slowly attracting more children than cricket in the schools.’
The President of the SLRFU also mentioned the exciting prospect of rugby which is to be taken to the North and East in a very big way, with both provinces coming up for full membership this year.
According to Mr. Seneviratne, the change of schedule in terms of the Clubs Season was made in order to facilitate the schools rugby season which has a massive following, as the allocations of grounds and referees were an issue if both seasons worked off in parallel. This will also ensure the best of officials will be allocated for the schools segment, hopefully making it a very exciting season.
Sri Lanka last hosted an Asiad in the year 2007, as this will only be the fourth time a tournament of such magnitude has been hosted in the island.
