Unbeaten Sri Lanka Lions & Army clinch the Sri Lanka – Indonesia Friendly Sevens

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Sri Lanka – Indonesia friendly encounter of sevens rugby concluded this evening (13th) at the CR&FC grounds, with Sri Lanka Lions winning the Men’s competition and defending club sevens champions Army SC continued their domination in the Women’s segment.

The Indonesian men and women visited Sri Lanka to gain more experience & exposure for their sevens teams ahead of the Asian Games which is held in Indonesia later this year. Indonesia didn’t come through the qualification process but qualified for the games since they are hosting the games.

Games commenced for Day 02 with the Women’s segment where Army cruised past Air Force 24 – 05 and the Indonesian Women won 17 – 05 against CR & FC.

Sri Lanka Lions hammered Police SC 52- 00 while Sri Lankan Tuskers who played the Day 01 games didn’t turn up on the second day so the matches continued with only three teams in the men’s segment.

Sri Lanka Army continued their domination by beating CR & FC 41- 00 and Indonesian women’s 29-00 and won the women’s competition while Air Force, after the early loss in the day turned their fortunes by beating CR 40 – 00 and Indonesian women’s 17 – 07.

While the visiting Indonesian team won against the Young CR outfit 17 – 05.

In the men’s segment Police SC defeated the Indonesian team 12 – 07 in the close affair and the final game of the day was played between Sri Lanka Lions and Indonesia.

Sri Lanka Lions comprehensively defeated Indonesia 38 -00. Omalka Gunarathne opened scoring for the Lions with a powerful ran through the Indonesian defence and Samuel Maduwantha scored two tries in quick succession as the score stood at 17 points to nil at half time. Second half tries from Ryhan Silva, Naveen Henakankanamage and Buddima Piyarathne increased the points tally for the Sri Lanka Lions to 38 points and with this victory Lions stayed unbeaten and won the men’s Competition.

Indonesian men’s team captain Nanda Septian Oloan Expressed his thoughts about the friendly competition “We learned so much from Sri Lanka and we have gained more experience by playing with a strong Sri Lankan team and we are improving day by day and this games helped us to improve our skills and our communication during games. This tournament showed us the weakness in our team and we will try to minimize them and play well in the Asian Games.”

Further the Indonesian Head Coach George Wilson expressed his views about the purpose of this visit to Sri Lanka. “Guys needed more exposure by playing with more developed nations in the sevens game in Asia as we are still in the process of developing rugby in Indonesia and we wanted to play against different styles of rugby as we played with Uzbekistan where we played with bigger and solid teams and here we wanted to play the fast open offloading style of rugby and teach the boys and girls to play different styles of rugby and gain more experience and game sense ahead of the Asian Games.”

Final Standing of the Competition.

  • Women’s Segment
  • Men’s Segment