ThePapere Sri Lankan Sports News

The Sri Lankan team which toured to China to play in the inaugural Shanghai sevens tournament came in 7^th place beating India 38 points to 12.

Talking exclusively to thepapare, the national coach Rony Ibrahim said that he was quite impressed with the side’s performance as they had only 3 proper training sessions. One major point that he stressed on was the transition from 15 a side rugby to seven a side rugby as all the players were involved in the Clifford cup knock out tournament. And he went on to say that with more preparation the side could have done better as they displayed some splendid performances specially against Chinese Taipei where they lost 17 -10 after a try scored during the last minute.

Coach/manager Rony Ibrahim was very impressed with the performance of young sensation Samantha Lakshan (Sami) as he had foxed a lot of players during the tournament with his unpredictable stepping and nippy running. Ashean Karthelis has led with example as he has also gotten the support of the other seniors Chamara Vithanage and Dushanth Lewke. The sevens team minus some big guns from Kandy SC and CH&FC gelled together brilliantly with some youngsters coming into the frame.

As we found out it was evident that the Lankans were not in a state to participate in a tournament of this magnitude. The lack of preparation came back to haunt them as they went down in almost every single match to huge scores. Even if the players played to their full potential, they could not have made any difference to the current standings as for the transition from 15’s rugby to sevens was an astonishing two and a half days.

Was it right for the Sri Lankan side to go on the Shanghai tour?