Barbarians demolish hapless Sri Lankans

The only lesson Sri Lanka would have learned from yesterday's 100-9 drubbing at the hands of the Hong Kong Barbarians is that when one is on the receiving end, time stands still.

It was a long 80 minutes for Sri Lanka at Happy Valley last night. They came to Hong Kong to play two warm-up games and to try to iron out all the wrinkles in their build-up to Saturday's crucial World Cup qualifier against Taiwan in Bangkok.

The visitors would hardly have learned anything from the thrashing they received. The physically bigger and more skilful Hong Kong team ran the ball in true Barbarians fashion to tot up 16 tries in a one-sided affair.

'They were too strong for us,' said Sri Lankan official S. W. Chang afterwards. 'We had hoped to play a side more to our strength.' That wish was not granted. New Hong Kong coach Phil Campbell used the opportunity to get a feel of his new charges. And they came up trumps, especially the dazzling backline, who made the most of the abundance of possession won by their forwards.

Campbell later passed the ball on to forwards coach Gary Cross to make a post-match assessment. He was possibly too embarrassed to comment on the one-way nature of the game.

The player of the night was centre Nigel D'Acre. Playing in a backline comprising all the new faces in town, D'Acre was in outstanding form, running in four tries.