Friends Of STAR

I wonder if sevens rugby will ever overtake the fifteen-a-side game, especially with the success of rugby in the Commonwealth games and now has been admitted to the Olympics?

And will Malaysia be at a disadvantage as they do not operate with a full time, and completely separate, sevens squad?

In April 1989 a team mate passed me the ball.

This was a terrible mistake on several fronts but most especially for me as it was at the Hong Kong sevens tournament, it was live on TV, exhaustion had set in, and there were eighty metres to go.

You guessed it: I never made it!!

At that time, your honour, no doctor had diagnosed my asthma. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Oh, but I grew up watching Waisele Serevi, Tomasi Cama, Eris Rush, and a host of others who could spring from one end of the pitch to the other with a hint of beauty about the way they played.

Seven-a-side rugby is perhaps the ultimate display of rugby, but, crucially, in bite-sized chunks.

If you look at many of the world's sports, from darts to snooker and from gridiron to lacrosse, a great deal is made of shorter versions of the game.

Somehow, when we can Google anything from a recipe to a quote and get the answer within ten seconds, our attention spans get used to handling things that don't last long.

But here we are, 2 weeks after the Commonwealth games and teams like Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka and other more lowly ranked countries have rubbed shoulders (dislocatted for some) with the Kiwis, the Samoans and the Aussies.

Why, thank-you. (… for the bragging rights!)

Many may not agree, but I do happen to think that sevens should be used as the marketing tool for rugby.

Football dominates the world, and in football you and I can stick down four jerseys, grab and ball and some friends, and we have a game.

To play the full-sided version or rugby you need lineouts and scrums and you just can't create them in a padang, on a sunny day, with your mates.

But you can with sevens.

The biggest marketing trick rugby could play to expand its boundaries over the next six years leading up to Brazil (where rugby arrives at the Olympics) is to sell this game of ours by using the small-sided game without complications to a world public that would take it up.

Can STAR produce its first Olympian during that time?

p/s: I got an email from iRB fortnight ago to discuss the inclusion of 10s rugby in the Law of the Game. Now, how’s that for Malaysia’s contribution towards the game we love..