ThePapare sought after the coach of Sri Lanka’s 15 aside rugby team, Ronny Ibrahim who shares with us the story behind the relative success achieved by his team.
The recently concluded Dialog Serendib Cup which was a last minute addition to the rugby calendar by the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) just under a month before the league, would have proved a nightmare for any coach.
The team selection was a hurried process; the final squad was put together two weeks before the tournament. Although an initial 30 man squad was called upon the requirements were not full-filled. With the clubs preparing for the impending league and the 7s practices taking place caused many of the clubs to refuse releasing players for the national squad with the best preserved for the club competition.
“With 10 professional clubs and 150 A division players, it was absurd that we couldn’t satisfy a requirement of 150 players,” the coach of National 15s side stated expressing his reaction to the team selections.
He said “since I’m known many players for a long time I had the advantage of getting directly involved. This is a challenge I personally accepted to bring more players into the team”.
The intention of Ronny Ibrahim was for the pool to be together two weeks before the tournament. He has also brought this issue to the attention of the Rugby Chairman. Many key players were more intent on representing the clubs rather than contributions to the Sri Lankan team.
At the end of the day we need to prioritize the national team. With tension between the clubs and the national representation, the final picks were not the best we could offer. Most of the players were amateurs to the 15s game. Yet the coach was optimistic of the selections with his personal preference towards the beginners, “It’s always easier to train beginners who will exactly follow your advice. On the contrary professionals tend to stick to their own fundamentals which will be challenging to a trainer.”
10 players made their national debut and were introduced to represent their country in the world stage. In the national context this should be a headline. “If we were to produce one new player to the Sri Lankan Cricket team that will be on headlines for months and here it was a similar case, with 10 new players to the national team. Most of all I have to take the responsibility on all these players as the coach.”
A whole new game plan was introduced to utilize freshers and to strategize with less than 5 days of intense practice before the game.
The first encounter was against Madagascar. “We had seen Poland playing but not Madagascar. On top of all by the time we were playing Madagascar we had not got to play any practice matches. A 20 minute trial was played but it wasn’t enough. I wanted the new players to consider this as a test match. At the same time I was experimenting with them. That is the same case even in any sport, batsmen facing the first ball are very nervous,” Ibrahim recalling his experience.
As Ronny explained the players were feeling nervous, yet they recovered towards the latter stages. “Considering the Madagascar match we had a solid plan in the first 20 minutes. Then I wanted to change by bringing Fazil on to the field. He actually practiced only an hour before the game. So when he walked in he didn’t have the necessary insight to the team. Rather than following the moves of the team, he followed his own tactics.” Therefore the team was clearly disjointed; the game wasn’t against a familiar Asian nation, new players were holding crucial positions and all of these factors contributed to the end result.
The scenario changed going into the Poland match. “I wanted players who can stick with the team. Also I think they performed very strong due to the reason that they saw the match between Poland and Madagascar. We watched them closely and had a strategic approach towards the game.” Facing a European team is hard; they are big in size and compete in a man on man basis. They have a strong line compared to Sri Lanka. Noting that the weak points were the corners, the new approach was to move the ball at such points.
With much effort and strategic planning Sri Lanka was able to win over Poland. It was much more than a simple victory. Winning against a European team helped the ‘new look’ Sri Lankan 15s to gain confidence in the game. Ronny Ibrahim is optimistic about the 15 a side rugby in the country.
“I’ve requested the players to stick together as a team whenever they have time; regardless you can practice or not, time together would bring in unity”
