The Hindu : Sport : Keen contest on the cards

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Keen contest on the cards

Principal Correspondent

National team probables not participating in the tournament due to preparations
Teams looking to break the dominance of the Army team in this year's edition

KOLKATA: Club teams would be looking to break Army's dominance in the 77th edition of the Royal Challenge all-India & South Asia rugby to be played here at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club from Saturday onwards.

With the Commonwealth and Asian Games' preparations keeping away the national team probables, the field appears open for the traditional big names like Bombay Gymkhana, host CCFC, Chennai Cheetahs and Delhi Hurricanes among others.

Army, which has five of its players in the CWG core probables, has fielded the usual two teams while there is a couple each from Tamil Nadu (Cheetahs & TN Police) and Delhi (Lions & Hurricanes).

Even the other teams — from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru — have players in the 21 probables announced for CWG.

Bengaluru and Mumbai have one team each.

Kolkata as the host will field four teams — Kolkata Police, Armenians and Jungle Crows, apart from CCFC.

The tournament, which had an Uzbekistan side winning the title last year in Mumbai, will have no foreign outfits this year.

The winners of the first round of the knock-out draw will move to the next round of the tournament.

Meanwhile, the losers will play the plate division.

The semifinals will be held on September 2 while the finals will be played after a day's break.

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