mobanmarketSidestepping cowpats and garbage, Myanmar’s only home-grown junior rugby side train on the outskirts of Yangon, preparing to take on children from the city’s well-heeled international schools.
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When the Little Dragons aren’t running barefoot on the litter-strewn dirt, the makeshift field on the outskirts of Yangon is sometimes used as a cockfighting ring or a fairground.
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But every Sunday, boys and girls aged five to 18 from Yangon’s North Dagon township can be seen playing touch rugby, an incongruous sight in a country where the sport is barely known.
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As novice monks file past collecting alms, the players shoo away cantankerous cattle to begin warm-up drills under the tutelage of their coaches, a mix of locals and expatriates.
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In the monsoon the training ground is shin-deep in mud, but during the hot season the surface is baked into an unyielding, crusty mosaic.
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Yet many of the Little Dragons play in bare feet.
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Youth worker-turned-coach Aung Kyaw Lin, 24, helped set up the team four years ago to run alongside English and maths lessons, and workshops on fire safety and health.
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“Children here used to spend their free time in gaming shops,” he says.
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“When they started playing rugby, they stopped arguing and worked together.”
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Although the organisers ran out of funding to keep their education centre going, the rugby continued.
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Few women play sport in conservative Myanmar, yet half of the 40 or so Little Dragons are girls.
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Nann Shar Larr He’s older sister used to scold her for wanting to play with the boys, but now most of her family come to watch the training sessions.
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“There’s no difference between girls and boys when we play rugby,” the 15-year-old smiles.
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Second-hand trainers
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As the only homegrown junior team in the country, the Little Dragons look to Yangon’s international schools for matches.
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In May, they took part in Myanmar’s first junior tournament – partly played on a full-sized, artificial grass pitch at one of the schools.
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Out of 10 teams in each age group, Little Dragons sides finished second and third in the Under-14s, and second in the Under-11s.
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“These kids ran rings round them,” says coach Bradley Edwards.
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One baffled team even tried removing their trainers to see if that was the key to the Little Dragons’ agility – an experiment that lasted only a couple of minutes on the hot, rough surface.
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“We felt like crying when they scored, but we just tried even harder,” says 12-year-old Dragon Kyaw Kyaw Lin.
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The schools are helping out the team, donating second-hand trainers and sharing transport.
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But the Dragons are looking for sustained funding to support them and resurrect the now-closed education centre.
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An interested international sponsor backed away last year, concerned about Myanmar’s “political climate” – a reference to the global outcry triggered by the mass expulsion of Rohingya Muslims in 2017.
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Edwards sees this as counter-productive, arguing that sport can be a unifying force.
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“There are so many things separating communities now in Myanmar and in rugby one of the key values is respect,” he says.
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The next step is to introduce the players to rugby sevens – but fellow coach Josh Peck says they are eager for more.
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“These kids are fired-up and ready. They want to play (full) contact.”
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