NZ help for Indian sevens team

MURRAY WILSON/The Manawatu Standard

AN EMERGING FORCE: Indian sevens team players, Dinesh Kumar, left, and Jagga Dagar, at right, are at Massey University practising for the Commonwealth Games.

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Rugby clubs in India have to be quick to pounce if a spot of land becomes vacant there.

Inevitably, it will be snapped up by cricket in the land of spin bowlers and now the lucrative Twenty20 cricket.

"Every ground is for cricket," said Usaia Biumaiwai, a Fijian, India's 15s and sevens coach.

"In every corner of the country, they play cricket."

But rugby is on the up, with 17,200 registered players. The game was first played in India in 1871. The Calcutta Cup is of Indian origin, but India joined the International Rugby Board (IRB) only in 2001. It is ranked 85th out of the 95 affiliated nations.

However, sevens will be at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in August and the Indian team will be playing there, as the host nation. Biumaiwai is charged with getting them up to speed for the games, and that's why the Indian Government has paid to have 23 players attend a 10-day camp with the International Rugby Academy at Massey University.

People such as former New Zealand sevens rep, Craig De Goldi, are helping coach them.

Last week, Biumaiwai took the players to the Marist sevens in Suva. They lost all their games, but got to play against tough Fijian sides such as Ratu Filise. Yesterday they played a Manawatu team.

In Asia, they play on an IRB satellite circuit in places such as Shanghai, Singapore and Brunei.

Talk Indians, and you expect lean whippets, but those at Massey are more burly than that.

"We've got size, but we don't have pace," Biumaiwai said.

"We have to build their fitness and we take them to the gym three days a week.

"A few of them come from rugby backgrounds, and a few are new. The army team is the champion team in India."

The team captain is Nasser Hussain, of Bombay Gymkhana. All the big cities in India have clubs.

The western city of Pune is where Biumaiwai and Rugby India are based, at the Balewadi Sports Complex.

It was also the city where a terrorist bomb killed eight people last month, leading to security concerns for teams visiting India.

The bomb exploded a long way from the rugby base and Biumaiwai said there should be few concerns.

"They really look after teams properly [with security]," he said.

He recently stayed in the same hotel in New Delhi as the World Cup hockey teams and was impressed with the level of security.

- © Fairfax NZ News