National rugby team going places
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The national "White Rhinos" charge into rugby union history next week, becoming the first all-national team to play a series of matches in the Philippines.
The matches, held as an exhibition during the 23rd Southeast Asian (SEA) Games from Nov. 27-Dec. 5, could lead to it becoming an official medal sport by 2007. The new Rhino emblem, the national captain and the run-on team will be introduced at a fundraising dinner at Aphrodite Club in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Saturday night. The dinner is open to the public at a cost of Rp 200,000 per person.
"This is an enormous honor and obviously a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these players to become the first team of Indonesians to represent their nation," Indonesian Development Rugby (IDR) spokesman Geoffrey Atkinson said in a release.
"Outside soccer, rugby is the biggest football code in the world and the past 12 months has seen an explosion of interest in the game at a local level. Our men may lack the experience of some of the other sides in the region that have been playing together for years, but they are determined and have been training hard."
The 16-man squad from Jakarta, Papua, Kalimantan and Maluku go through an intensive training camp at Senayan in Jakarta this week under a Bahasa speaking coach from Singapore. The 7-a-side series in the Philippines will be a curtain-raiser to the SEA Games.
Saturday night's fundraiser also sees the New Zealand All Blacks try and create their own history as they go for the final leg of a European Grand Slam in a televised match against Scotland.
The Rhinos head for the Philippines with the full support of National Sports Council; Indonesia has already received "observer status" from the International Rugby Board and two months ago applied for full recognition.
"We hope this tournament will spark interest in other Indonesian provinces so we can soon be fully recognized at an international level," Atkinson added.
The squad was selected in Bali last month after an annual international 10-a-side tournament which went ahead despite the second Bali bombings.
The Jakarta Bantengs -- in their first year in the competition against sides from Singapore, Australia, Taipei and Guam -- won the IDR runner's-up plate. The same weekend, the first 12 Indonesians received Level 1 Coaching Accreditation through a course run by representatives of Singapore Rugby Union.
"With 220 million people in Indonesia, we have the potential to be the best in Asia," Atkinson said. "But we have to spread the game to every corner of the country. We have to introduce rugby at junior and school levels -- this is the only way to grow. We are continuously on the lookout for people interested in expanding the code and new sponsorship is vital."
IDR receives financial backing from multinational construction company Thiess and Digital 1, part of the KabelVision Network, but the game still has a way to go here.
"In Singapore, Thailand and other Asian countries, where rugby has been established for more than a decade, the game is run by full-time professionals -- which include coaching and administrative staff working off multimillion dollar budgets. We would like to head down the same path as Singapore," Atkinson said.
"In a decade they have become an Asian rugby force behind Japan and Korea. But, like us, they started with very little."