Phil Greening, Sri Lanka Rugby coach

Sri Lanka’s National Rugby Coach Phil Greening, the former England hooker, has said it was a huge shock to him to see that rugby is so deeply engrained in the Sri Lanka society, a media report said.

According to New York Times, Greening has said “It’s massively followed and massively reported on. I’ve been blown away during the five weeks about how big rugby is there, but also how much scope and growth and development there could be,”

“Cricket and rugby are very big. Rugby is their first sport at school. But after that, it loses its way a bit.” Greening has told in a media interview.

According to the news report, he has already suggested to the local authorities to set up a national academy and an elite center.

Sri Lanka’s new coach who has played 24 tests for England has also said that right steps are being taken to improve the standard of rugby in the country.

According to him, for some of the young players who were recently selected to the national squad straight out of school — it was the first time they had been given any advice on nutrition and conditioning or had endured the rigors of regular, intense training sessions.

Analysis of their matches, training and opposition team also has been new to the boys.

“It’s difficult for them because I’ve come from a professional background where I’ve got certain expectations and standards and they’ve never had it” Greening has said.

Greening has said, those practices has been new for the Lankan boys but very basic for a lot of other professional teams.

Greening thinks breaking into the top 20 countries in the world in the midterm in 15s rugby is probably unrealistic for the Lankan team.

However he has said the local team can make quicker progress in sevens rugby.

Courtesy: NewYork Times

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