Plate champs Sri Lanka remains third in Asia

Plate champs Sri Lanka remains third in Asia

Chris Dhambarage

The Sri Lanka men’s rugby team completed the 2013 HSBC Asian Rugby Sevens Series on a high note when they clinched the Plate Championship in the fourth and final leg which was worked off at the Yio Chu Kang Sports Complex in Singapore last week.

The Tuskers after having failed to make an impact on the opening day of the event bounced back into recognition magnificently to beat Chinese Taipei by a convincing margin of 38 points to nil in the final encounter.

Their success also had a great amount of significance as the Sri Lankans were able to secure the third position in the Asian Rankings with a tally of 37 points behind the winners Japan (47) and runners up Hong Kong (45).      

Even then the Sri Lanakans will be quite disappointed that they could not make it to the Cup Championship category after having suffered a shock 12-17 defeat at the hands of China.   

“I think we made a lot of mistakes in the match against China where the three quarters dropped the ball on many occasions when they were very close to the try line.  

“This was also the first time we were playing against China in the entire sevens series this season and may be the players were completely unaware of their opponents strengths and weaknesses.

“Anyway this was no excuse for our defeat in this vital game because we played very badly throughout the game and that also put the team out of contention for the Cup Championship,” lamented the Sri Lankan coach Niloufer Ibrahim.

However Ibrahim was really pleased with the overall performances of the Sri Lankan sevens team which maintained their consistency in all four legs worked off in Malaysia, Thailand, India and Singapore respectively.   

“I must commend the entire team for putting up a tremendous performance on the second day of the tournament where they simply swept aside all opponents to win the Plate Championship.         

“I think this was a fantastic effort from the team considering the fact that our preparations for this event were somewhat hampered because of the Serendib Cup tournament at home and we had only a couple of training sessions before leaving to Singapore.  

“The hot and humid weather conditions in Singapore further hampered our few workout sessions before the start of the tournament and the players were lacking in match practices before the first two games against Indonesia and the Philippines.”

Niloufer Ibrahim was full of praise for his nippy scrum half Srinath Sooriyandara who became the third highest try scorer of the entire tournament with 18 tries just behind Thomas Mcqueen of Hong Kong (19 tries) and Lomano Lemeki of Japan (27 tries).  

“I think for me Srinath Sooriyabandara and Sandun Herath were the pick of the players because they were simply outstanding throughout the series and made a huge impact for the side through their all round brilliance.     

“We of course missed the services of third row forward Shenal Dias who was not available for selection and in addition Sajith Saranga was forced to keep away during the latter stages of the series due to injuries.   

“We got to find few more talented players from the outstations and the main target should be to beat Hong Kong next season to reach the the number two position in the Asian Sevens Rankings,” added the Sri Lankan sevens coach.    

HSBC Asian Sevens Series final standings

Team                                     Malaysia      Thailand       India              Singapore    Total

Japan                                     12                   12                   11                   12                   47      

Hong Kong               11                   11                   12                   11                   45

Sri Lanka                   9                      10                   10                   8                      37

South Korea             10                   9                      6                      9                      34

Philippines               5.5                  8                      8                      6                      27.5

Malaysia                   8                      5                      9                      5                      27

Thailand                    7                      7                      7                      4                      25

Chinese Taipei         5.5                  3                      4                      7                      19.5

China                                     2                      4                      3                      10                   19

Singapore                 3                      2                      5                      3                      13

Kazakhstan              4                      6                      2                      -                       12

Indonesia                 -                       -                       -                       2                      2

UAE                            1                      0                      0                      1                      2

Caption:

The Sri Lanka sevens rugby team that won the Plate Championship in Singapore 

End.