KIK Cola Junior Super 16 Rugby Championships (U10 + U12)

Friday, 15 June 2012 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

One of the biggest challenges faced in developing the Junior Rugby at school levels has been the ability to keep the interest on the youngsters in the game.

Under the present set up Under 10 and Under 12 tournaments are limited to one or two days of competitive rugby for the whole year. In this situation most juniors have only an opportunity to play in about four to five competitive matches for the whole year. Overall a player has very little opportunity to participate in any competitive rugby and hence tend to loss interest in the game at an early stage of their development.

To address this and at the same time develop the basic skills and match sense of the junior player a group of Old Boy enthusiast from some of the leading schools in Colombo have being organising the KIK Cola Junior Super 16 Rugby Championships (U10 + U12) for the past three years.

The tournament which started with four schools (Super 8) has proved to be very popular and expanded to six schools (Super 12) in 2010 and to nine schools in 2011, namely: D.S. Senanayake College, Issipathana College, Royal College, St Joseph College, St Peters College, St Thomas – Prep,

St Thomas College – Mt Lavania, Wesley College and Zahira College. The dates for this year are

17 June (Sunday), 3 July (Tuesday), 31 Aug (Friday) and 29 Sep (Saturday).

Royal Sports Complex is provided to the Organisers free of charge by the Royal College in recognition of the importance of this Championship to develop and nature the Rugby Talent at a young age. The Match officials are nominated by the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Referees Union and in addition the organisers ensure the full safety of the players with Ambulance and Doctor in attendance at all times. The game is conducted under the Rules and Guidelines of International Rugby Union (IRB) with emphasis on safety, fun and skill development of the Kids.

The tournament will be managed by a committee from Old Boys Representative of the Participating Schools

A total of four teams from each school (two teams each of Under 10 and Under 12) will participate and total number of youngsters who will get exposed to competitive Rugby over four rounds of will number over 400 students.