Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR)in their bid to win a medal at the Asian Games 2022 in the Sevens rugby tournament will launch a High Performance Programme with the support of the Sports Ministry in
collaboration with the Sports Council(SC). They have submitted a comprehensive proposal to SC recently in obtaining their support.
“We requested the SLR to provide us a proposal citing their plan in forming a high performance programme, which they have submitted recently. We are in the process of discussing and evaluating it. It needs a few sittings and discussions before we come to a final conclusion. Nevertheless, our aim is to support the Sevens format of the game targeting winning a medal at the Asian Games next year. We will support them for this endeavour with the available resources.” said Julian Bolling, a member of the Sports Council headed by Mahela Jayawardena.
Sri Lanka Rugby is confident of resuming rugby and activate their short term and long term goals of winning a medal at the Asian Sevens Series and qualifying for the Olympics in 2024 followed by the World Series in 2026 with the high performance programme. “I feel a renewed sense of confidence, hopefully with the blessings of the Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa and the Chairman High Performance committee Mahela Jayawardena, we will be able to commence our high performance programme with our Men’s and Women’s players contracted year around for residential training. The high performance programme will have a professional outlook with foreign coaches and this will be the opening for the inter club sevens hopefully to be played in August and lead the way to prepare our Men’s and Women’s teams to the Asian games, Commonwealth Games and Dubai Sevens.
Julian Bolling, a member of the Sports Council who has been entrusted by the Sports Ministry, is currently under discussion with our secretary Jude Pillai in finalizing the High Performance Programme.’ Said Rizly Illyas, President of SLR.
While executing a working plan, The SLR is looking for sponsors after their regular tie up with Dialog Axiata expired last month. They will open out a tender process for 2021/2022 seasons. They expect Dialog Axiata who has played a pivotal role for quite some time will continue their magnanimous gesture to get on board to sponsor the game which has a new look tournament structure.
With the intention of resuming rugby, the governing body has requested the players and all officials who are affiliated to the SLR, who would be engaged in conducting the tournaments, to take their vaccination jabs in order to make things easier.
To work the local tournament cost effective and minimize the cost on Covid-19 pandemic regulation, SLR will be discussing with the Ministry of Sports to form a 25 player pool from each ‘A’ division men’s and women’s teams from their respective clubs to be vaccinated with the Covid Vaccine in order to get into a workable bio bubble, which would be safe.
As much as they would like to get rugby back to its feet their primary concern is maintaining the safety measures of the players and officials, stipulated by the health authorities. The SLR is currently is closely discussing with Amal Edirisuiya, the Director General of Sports in gaining the necessary approval to resume the game.
Apart from the local tournaments they are being offered to host a few back to back Sevens tournaments listed in the Asian Rugby calendar followed by the Junior Rugby Asiad to resume from August this year with the necessary approvas from the relevant authorities.
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