24 teams vie for honours at Lanka Lions Rugby Sevens

The 11th Lanka Lions Inter-School Tag Rugby Sevens tournament for the Roger Rodrigo Challenge Cup will be held on Friday October 23 at Sharjah Wanderers Club from 8.00 am.

It is one of the most looked forward to events in the sporting calendar for Lankan expatriates resident in the UAE as old boys of top rugby playing schools battle for the plum.

Such is the interest, there is an increase of participating schools which has gone up from 18 schools to 21 with the total number of teams competing being 24.

“The inter school tournament is getting stronger and stronger. Last year there were 18 schools. This year there are 21 schools and 24 teams which is good. Boys who don’t want to play contact, they wait for this. They have been practising for last two months,” said Roger Rodrigo, sports secretary of Lanka Lions Sports Club.

Trinity are the defending champions of the Roger Rodrigo Challenge Cup, named in honour of the former Sri Lanka and Gulf rugby great who is a stalwart of Lanka Lions.

St Peter’s, Zahira and Mahanama have also emerged champions of this tournament during the past decade.

Teams allowed to bring one player from Colombo to represent them in this tournament by the organisers.

However, the original objective for this ruling was to help Lanka Lions unearth fresh talent from this competition for the Dubai Sevens.

“The idea of this tournament when I started 11 years back was to improve the rugby of Lanka Lions and bring in more players. That’s why I started because we had only a bunch of players. I said we’ll start inter-school rugby and from there we will recruit and try to build the Lanka Lions up,” explained Rodrigo who represented Lanka Lions since 1989.

“Then two or three years ago, we brought a ruling that each team can bring one player from Colombo so we can improve and bring fresh blood to the side because players were getting old,” said Rodrigo, a former president of Lanka Lions.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.