COACH’S DECISION TO APPOINT MUTHUTHANTHRI AS CAPTAIN – CHIEF SELECTOR

The choice of captain for the upcoming Asian Rugby Championships Division One tournament in Malaysia was made by the coach Johan Taylor, Chief Selector Micheal Jayasekera told the Daily Mirror yesterday, responding to criticisms that the selectors had overlooked a more senior player to lead the team.

Havelock SC’S Sudarshana Muthuthanthri was named as skipper of the 25-member squad, which was announced on Monday, ahead of Roshan Weeraratne who has more international experience and led Kandy SC during a crucial stretch of the recently concluded Dialog Rugby League in the absence of regular captain Fazil Marija.

“There was a lot of debate as to who should be appointed the captain, and selection committee was impressed by the credentials that Sudarshana and Roshan had to captain the team. So we decided to seek the opinion of the coach to make the final decision. He first wanted Roshan to skipper, but he later felt the maturity and leadership that Sudharshana showed during the practices would be more ideal,” Jayasekera said.

“Following that we decided to appoint Sudarshana as captain and we are very comfortable with that choice. He also has experience of leading the Sri Lanka 7s team,” Jayasekera also added.

He said the task of selecting the squad was not made easy by certain players picking and choosing which tournaments they wanted to play in, and the unavailability of those players meant they had to choose from the next best crop of players. The squad for the tournament features more players from Havelock SC, who ended the league in second place, than players who represented the championship winning Kandy SC team.

“A large number of Kandy players didn’t turn up due to injury or personal reasons, and we had no choice to pick from the next best crop of players. Unfortunately this has meant us having to pick a majority of players from Havelock SC, and people are criticizing us for that,” he said. “The selection process started late, and as such some players had travelled abroad on leisure and said they were unavailable for selection. These players were aware that there was a tournament scheduled during this period, but chose to travel and said that they would not be able to represent the country,” he said, adding that ultimately the players could not be wholly faulted as the SLRFU had began selections so close to the tournament.