It’s interesting to know what thoughts occupied the minds of the rebel players when they watched the highly successful Carlton Sevens, worked off last week. Many rated the sporting event as the biggest international rugby tournament they had witnessed in this island. One amongst the rebels, former Sri Lanka skipper and veteran player, Radhika Hettiarachchi, took a bold decision to straighten the strained relations with the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union and the Sports Minister and make himself available for the selection. Some would have blamed Hettiarachchi, but then the decision, taken by him had wisdom written all over. The guy has reached his peak and quite rightly realised that opting to be a rebel technically denies him any involvement in international rugby for two years, due to a ban. Staying away from international rugby for so long would amount to committing suicide!

The point to ponder is this ability to see opportunities, some which come once in a lifetime. This is still a nation where people have to create opportunities for themselves because the people in power don’t have a vision for real progress in the country, whatever the subject is accept when preserving sovereignty in this country.

If one analyzes the things that happened during the three day tournament, it was very clear almost everybody was looking after ‘themselves’. The Carlton Sevens was like a big cake made to satisfy the taste buds of those in the higher echelons. There were people who associated themselves in supplying ingredients for this ‘rugby cake’, but it was not all that important to them that they taste the cake.

There were so many top companies which played large roles in associating themselves with the sporting event as sponsors. No one complained that the national team was represented by a virtual third string team. There were so many people working with the team and a few amongst them would have wished they had ideal working conditions and a lot more time to prepare the players. The involvement of the supreme most decision maker of this country, in the tournament, was never in doubt. As a result there was a sense of no one wanting to let down such a powerful personality. When the Sri Lanka team took to the grounds on the third day and lost badly to Kazakhstan and Thailand, it appeared this was one neglected area despite all the pomp and pageantry in the tournament. No one cared a damn about the fact that the host nation had done huge injustice to the country’s rugby image at the tournament by fielding what could be rated as the third string team in the country.

The Carlton Sevens showcased great hospitality, the spirit of a sporting festival like never before. And among many other amazing things that matches were being worked off keeping to a tight schedule, thanks to the diligent work by pitch marshal, Ana Wijeratne.

There were so many rugby personalities involved in the tournament either as officials or commentators or as aids in the press box. The organizers of the tournament even got two world renowned personalities Waisale Serevi and Tomasi Cama (Fijian legends) to give away some of the awards at the tournament. It must be stated that when one witnessed the large vacant areas at the stands, it was evident that the awareness campaign for the Carlton Sevens was not good enough. Given the fact that there were top international teams taking part and that entrance was free, a good awareness campaign should have filled the stands with spectators, especially the next generation of rugby players. The press too had a hard time covering the tournament with severe restrictions imposed on them regarding freedom of movement at the grounds. The organizers were talking about conducting the Carlton Sevens in similar fashion to the Hong Kong Sevens tournament. If that was the case why weren’t press conferences arranged for the media with the Cup, Plate and Bowl winning teams after the conclusion of the tournament? This is an opportunity afforded to the media at IRB sanctioned Sevens tournaments.

The tournament made news at the start for all the wrong reasons. Firstly, it was the national team which struggled to commence practices. Then, there was so much happening around Hettiarachchi’s inclusion in the squad which Sri Lanka rugby’s problems never seem to end. Despite all these negativities one man, New Zealander George Simpkins, a former Sri Lanka coach and the Director of the Tournament, stuck to his vision of having a great tournament. Simpkins commands so much respect in the global rugby fraternity that he found enough cooperation all round to make the Carlton Sevens a success, from an organizer’s perspective. He told this writer after the tournament, “This is only the beginning”, hinting that he had bigger plans for the Carlton Sevens next year.
Simpkins gave Sri Lanka a lesson on how to be organized when conducting a tournament.

There were so many teams, each doing its own little thing to make the tournament a success. There was of course over indulgence in security, a point which is debatable from the organizer’s point of view. And talking about allocating work and making a task a success, the work in the Sri Lanka team was handled by Imthie Marikar-coach, Mohotilal Jayatilake-trainer, Rohan Chinthaka-manager and Dharmaratne-masseur. If one closely observed the other teams, some had employed extra coaches and Japan even had the services of a video analyst. A team, to be successful today, employs extra people in the capacities of psychologists, statisticians and even ‘professional’ helpers. A team just can’t strike gold with just a coach, trainer and masseur.
Near the podium where the awards were distributed, some fans waited to get their books autographed by Serevi and Cama. One very bold fan gave a whiteboard marker pen to Serevi and got him to sign at the back of his T-shirt. The organizers of the tournament also distributed some balls as souvenirs among spectators. This writer wonders what the Sri Lanka rugby players took home as souvenirs? Even if there were no souvenirs for them, they would have definitely taken home memories of how great the players in the international tournament were. Sri Lankans also witnessed, probably for the first time a representative team from New Zealand perform ‘Haka’ with their naked eyes. All those involved in Sri Lanka rugby realized that so much goes into international rugby teams and what little goes into our own rugby.