Sri Lanka retain Bowl at Borneo Sevens
The young Sri Lankan outfit under the leadership of Up Country Lions SC player Srinath Sooriyabandara retained the Bowl championship when they got the better of the hosts Malaysia in the Final. In the end the Lankans beat the hosts by 19 points (2goals, 1 Try) to 12 points (1 goal, 1 Try) in their HSBC Asian Sevens series opening rugby encounter which was worked off in Malaysia yesterday. Last year too Sri Lanka won the Bowl under the leadership of Yoshitha Rajapakse overcoming Kazakhstan.
On day two Sri Lanka performed really well to win both the Bowl semi finals and final. Earlier in the day Sri Lanka went past Thailand 22-10. Saliya Kumara, Chamara Dabarage, Nigel Ratwatte and Vishvamithra Jayasinghe scored the tries. Saliya converted one of them.
In the final Sri Lanka came from behind to win after being led 12-7 at the short breather by the hosts. Though Nigel Ratwatte scored within minutes Malaysia hit back with back to back tries and took a five point lead at the short breather. After the turnaround Visvamithra Jayasinghe touched down once and Ratwatte made sure that Sri Lanka would win the Bowl when he planted his second try of the game.
‘Daily Mirror’ spoke to the Secretary of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) Rizly Illyas who said that the boys did really well to settle down on day two. “After coach Ben Gollings came we wasted no time and one hundred percent attendance was witnessed at the training sessions. Hats off to the youngsters under Sooriyabandara for being able to win the Bowl with only three days of training. We will make sure to look after the young ones and I am sure that we will improve our rankings in the coming tournaments in Shanghai, India and Singapore” said Illyas. The Secretary concluded by saying that when Asanga Seneviratne took over Sri Lankan Rugby he wanted to bring the best available coach in the globe. “We have got down Ben who holds the IRB record for the highest point scorer and led England in a number of tournaments. With Ben being with the boys he would have studied the strengths of the lads and the area for improvements. We at SLRFU will give our fullest support and lets wait for the next stop over in Shanghai. I am sure the boys will improve in their rankings in the Asian Series in the coming tournaments”.
Japan won the Cup segment beating the physical Hong Kong outfit 33-22 and in the Plate final Chinese Taipei beat Philippines 31-19.