Glory at the Borneo Sevens

Despite my pessimism last week indicating that we were booted out of the main competition on the first day, the SL sevens side did their country proud by annexing some much needed silverware on day two. The win is credible given the run up to the tournament. We are in the midst of a league schedule with two more weeks of rugby to play out and the main winners have already been resolved.

There has not been any Sevens tournament barring the Carlton sevens which was held before the start of the league season in June this year. The former coach of the national side had to be replaced barely two weeks before the departure of the side to Borneo. Given all of this, to return home with the Bowl is credible. This begs the question as to whether we are destined to reach greater heights with the right level of coaching and match practice. The end of the month will see the team take part in another sevens tournament and we hope that the preparation is better with the results being a notch higher.

The Youth Asiad will take place in Colombo next week and the squad has been selected. If the recently concluded schools season is anything to go by, the quality of the SL youth will be of a good standard. However one must bear in mind that although these will be preliminary rounds, we will still be faced with stiff opposition both in terms of skill and weight. One of the many drawbacks that the national side has faced in the recent past has been the superior skill, levels of fitness and weight of the opposition. There was a school of thought that the game must be played based on weight as in the case of boxing, as to whether that will come to fruition is a matter of conjecture at this stage.

This week will also see the resumption of the local club league battle with Army looking to consolidate their position as table leaders. It’s a mere two points that separate them from Police, who will also be in action this week. Thus whilst this week’s encounters are important to both teams, we could not have asked for more in that Army/Police will eventually clash in the following week in what could be a grand finale. CR and Air Force will obviously look to spoil the party for the table leaders as they have nothing to lose as of now.

On the International front we will witness the resumption of the Rugby Championship games this week with NZ taking on the Pumas who held the Boks to a thrilling draw the previous week. The Wallabies with plenty of replacements will take on the Boks so that they can keep their hopes of finishing in the second spot alive. The Wallabies will have a lot of soul searching to do, after their dismal performance against the All Blacks in their two opening games. In all probability the fate of Robbie Deans may be decided at the end of this championship and if the Wallabies finish in third slot, a few heads are bound to roll. In a way it is sad, as the depth of Wallabies rugby is pretty shallow with first preference going to Rugby league unlike across the Tasman where Rugby Union is a religion.

(The writer can be reached via [email protected].)