Indian Rugby
 

As some of you may know, I am moving to the Philippines. I want to play some rugby -amongst other things- and I have been checking out the sport in the country.

There isnt really much to tell. There are about 10 teams, some struggle to have 15 members, they obviously do not have a history in the game and no public interest. They only became a member of the IRB in 2009. The standard clearly isnt great.

So it was a suprise to me to read that they won the the HSBC Asian Five Nations Division 2 competition with a 34-12 win over India in New Delhi with a 2000 strong crowd watching.

How is that possible? India has over 15 000 players and over 75 clubs.

Why is India performing so badly in rugby? It isnt as if the Philippines has a culure of sport (3rd largest nation not to win a single medal in the last Olympics), only recently started playing the sport and has few playing members and Filipinos are hardly regarded as 'large' people.

Im interesting in some feedback on this as, on the face of it, there is little to explain how bad Indian rugby is.

India simply failed to get numbers at the break down on the day imo.

Nearly choked on my muffin when I saw the thread title. Heh. I'd pay a lot of money to watch Indians playing Rugby.

If India is anything like Hong Kong, Singapore, Arabian Gulf, etc then the standard of their rugby would be very much dependent on the quality of the expat players as they'd make up the majority of the player base

Tipping they kicked more penalty goals tbh.

Haha there is rugby in India?

Ha ha yes. Don't let the 15k fool anyone. Most of them could be armymen or kids playing just for the kicks. I hardly doubt you'd find 200 who take the sport professionally. Hundred times more play kho kho and gilli danda.

We sucking at sports is no new thing. Football is best example.

There is a long-standing joke among Indian cricket fans that Indian cricketers are averse to diving and acrobatics on the field because they are afraid of getting their kits dirty*. I think that safely rules out any Indian prowess in rugby.

*Actually, come to think of it, Indian cricketers usually grow up playing on dry grounds without a patch of grass on them, so naturally they rarely produce good fielders.

Years ago when I went to see Leicester Tigers play I remembered reading an article in the match program about a forthcoming friendly between the Tigers and the Indian national team. Was as close as you'd expect.

Think the city of Leicester is a case in point, actually. It's possibly the only major city in the country where union is bigger than football and has a large Indian community but I can't recall one Asian player ever breaking through to the Tigers' team. There just doesn't seem to be the interest there.

The only British Asian to play top flight rugby of either code I can recall is Ikram Butt who actually played league for England. He's of Pakistani rather than Indian extraction tho.

IIRC, the Indian national team was in Stellenbosch last year, and lost against a university residence side. The residence in question, Simonsberg, is better known for academic and hockey prowess than rugby. So, no answer on the why, but the Indian rugby team does seem to be pretty bad.

Do you not remember the hindi movies with the main guy running the entire length of the pitch and scoring a try?

To win the game with 15 seconds remaining. I'm expecting Richie McCaw to make his Bollywood debut sometime in the near future.

ha this has to be the best thread in a while

just goggled and checked our stats

we are ranked 72nd in the world out of 95 teams. currently being coached by South Africans Norman Laker and Henry Marnitz. There are, in total, 17,200 registered rugby players

our biggest win has been aganist Pakistan 92-0 and biggest lose aganist Singapore 0-93

we did took part in the 2007 world cup qualifier lost to Kazakhstan

Little known fact but the highly acclaimed and respected Bollywood and Independent Film Actor, Rahul Bose represents India in Rugby and for a while was the captain of the Indian Rugby Team.

Good god almighty is there a tape of this? A dvd perhaps? I need to see this.