Shakeel targets top-four spot

Rugby coach wants Pakistan in div 2

KARACHI: Pakistan rugby team head coach Shakeel Ahmed has revealed that he will try and pick the best talent from the country for the upcoming 15-a-side Asian Rugby Championship, while his overall plan remains to take Pakistan into the top four teams of the continent.

To identify the nation’s top rugby talent, Shakeel has changed his selection approach, taking the national trials to main cities instead of calling players to a centralised camp.

So far, the open trials have taken place in Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar, with the next one set to be staged in Lahore.

“It is about the accessibility as most of the time the talented players can’t make it to the trials because of travelling difficulties so we took the trials to them,” Ahmed told The Express Tribune. “I’ve been very surprised with the turnout and I’m extremely confident that we can put together a very good team for the Asian Championship because of the way these new players are performing. I feel we’ll be progressing faster in the rugby world now.”

Ahmed, who doubles as the Pakistan Rugby Union Technical Director, feels the ‘Get Into Rugby’ program has helped spread the sport across schools and colleges.

“People are now more aware of the game, especially in Punjab, contact sports are popular and people can relate to rugby as well because sports like wrestling and kabaddi were already pretty big here, so there is a lot more interest now,” he said. “In Sindh, too, we have women’s and men’s teams. I feel we can get back to division two with the right plan.”