The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) was held at the Colombo Swimming Club last evening.
President Asanga Seneviratne announced that SLRFU will henceforth be known as Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) following the recent changes to major Rugby sporting bodies across the world. The International Rugby Board (IRB) was changed to World Rugby, Asian Rugby Football Union is now Asia Rugby, and the English, Kiwi and Australian Unions too have dropped the ‘football union’ from their names. Mr. Seneviratne mentioned that a change of name could also impact sponsorships.
Seneviratne went on to say that “we would have never got to play Olympic Qualifier’s if the women’s team was not there. You need to have both men and women playing rugby to get into Olympic sport so unless we seriously develop the women’s game our membership will be cancelled by Asia Rugby and World Rugby.” In a bid to address this issue, Sri Lanka Rugby is looking to organize a women’s league in next year’s Mercantile and Dialog super 7’s series’.
Mr. Seneviratne also mentioned that Inthi Marikar’s inclusion as high performance director has been extremely fruitful with Sri Lanka enjoying success at the junior level. The growth of the sport in the schools has been extremely encouraging and Seneviratne outlined a lofty goal for Sri Lanka to work towards, “Sri Lanka is to be the FIJI of Asian Rugby”.
He went on to say that SLR is working with trainer Nic Groube in terms of a more scientific player development method, “These are the people who have a vast amount of knowledge, they have the passion and the love for the sport as well.”
He did not forget to mention that Mr. Y.C Chang initiated the development in the country and rugby today is going on right direction.
Priyantha Ekanayake is set to take on the role of CEO soon and the only change in the SLR committee is that outgoing treasurer Mohamed Riyas was replaced by Mr. Ray Abeywardena.
President – Mr. Asanga Senevirathne
Vice President – Mr. Lasitha Gunarathne
(Hony)Secretary – Mr. Nazeem Mohamed
Treasurer – Mr. Ray Abeywardena
Executive Director – Rohan Gunarathne
Elected Council Members
Tuan Dole
Roshan Deen
Fazal Mohamed
Jude Pillai
Shamrath Fernando
Ted Muttiah
Brg. Sunil Ranasinghe
SLR Trustees
i. Mr. Malik Samarawickrama
ii. Mr. Hemaka Amarasuriya
iii. Mr. Y.C. Chang
 of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) was held at the Colombo Swimming Club last evening.){kind=link}