By Shamseer Jaleel in Gold Coast, Australia
Despite Sri Lanka losing all three of their Rugby Sevens matches at the Commonwealth Games held in the Gold Coast of Australia they did manage to score first in all of these encounters against Fiji, Wales and Uganda.
The danger man for the team was Dhanushka Ranjan who looked unstoppable throughout the competition.
Sri Lanka’s only major success at the Commonwealth Games’ Rugby Sevens event came four years ago in Glasgow, Scotland when a team led by Fazil Marija claimed the Shield.
“It was tough for us playing at this level against world-class teams. But they got us used to performing under pressure so this is all good experience,” said the team’s skipper Surdarshana Muthuthanthri.
“Ranjan is a great player and he is very quick and has always been a threat on the attack. We also learned that when we have the ball we look good. On defence, we need to work harder to make our first tackles. That let us down a little and we need to make one-on-one tackle without fail. We would have scored a few more tries too if our support play had been better,” he added. Despite Sri Lanka coming into the tournament as the fourth-ranked side in their pool, Muthuthanthri was disappointed not to come away with a win.
But Sri Lanka will now have their sights set on the Asian Games and the Asia Rugby Sevens Series later in the year. “We were disappointed we couldn’t win the last game against Uganda. We did not play as well as we had hoped but we can learn from this and move forward during the rest of the season.”
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