Ceylonese Rugby & Football Club (CR&FC) coach John Carrington sees the Longden Place club failing to win the league plum for more than a period of 10 years was enough of a challenge to accept an invitation to coach CR this season.

"To coach a team that has been constantly placed second or third in the league championship for a long time and working towards the goal of making the team win the tournament was exciting enough to come down to Sri Lanka," Carrington, a New Zealander, told ‘The Island.’

Carrington said that he was impressed by the interest shown by Sri Lankans towards rugby. However, he warned that CR&FC would have to start learning how to play rugby all over again if they are to win the championships.

Carrington, who has been in the island since February this year, ensured the team tasted victory in the Western Province Rugby Tens. He said his approach to coaching CR&FC would be to take one match at a time. He said he knew little about Kandy Sports Club, given the fact that he is coaching a rugby team in Sri Lanka for the first time. However, he said, he believed Kandy SC was beatable. "I think it’s this winning atmosphere that’s carrying Kandy SC through," he said.

Carrington’s coaching assignment in Sri Lanka hasn’t been a bed of roses. To begin with, his pre-season planning was affected, because the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) delayed finalizing the fixture calendar for 2009. Then he had to deal with the injury worries of players, mostly his seniors. According to Carrington, a good number of the club’s seniors are nursing injuries and would be fully fit only for the second round of matches.

Despite the odds, he said there were enough positives which could drive the team towards achieving its goals. "The most significant is the attitude of the players towards training and learning new things," he said.

He said that CR&FC’s hopes largely depend on the younger players in the side. "Till the seniors recover from their injuries, the young players in the side will get a fantastic opportunity of wearing the CR&FC jersey. The seniors’ understanding of rugby and the needs of the club is fantastic. And most importantly, the seniors spend time with the juniors to educate them on rugby," he said adding, "I see Ashen Karthelis as a strong leader".

According to Carrington, the players attend rugby practices in the morning and do their individual fitness training schedules in the evening. "The players have limited time for training, so I can’t say that their training meets my full requirement. There is also the period of concentration of the players to be considered, because no more can be taken in after the players stop concentrating," explained Carrington, who has been contracted to coach rugby and also oversee the fitness of the players.

Carrington believes in the wonders of having pool session for players after a hard days training. He said the players weren’t new to sessions in the swimming pool but unlike in the past they were getting used to doing a workout in water.

He said he was amazed at the skills displayed by schoolboy rugby players in Sri Lanka. Unlike other expatriate coaches employed in Sri Lanka, he has had the opportunity to have a closer look at the country’s rugby set up, given the fact that he was assigned with duties as Sri Lanka coach when the team contested the Asian Five Nations in Dubai. Having spent many months here, he suggests having an Under-21 tournament to benefit school leavers, who wish to take to club rugby and also to have more coaching academies.