SportsIsipatana, St. Peter’s, Royal and Trinity book berths in rugby’s Super Round

he first round of inter-school under 19 league rugby tournament concluded last weekend with the two unbeaten teams Isipatana and St. Peter’s along with Trinity and Royal booking their berths in the super round, which is set to commence soon.

Trinity reached the next stage of the tournament by default, because the Thomians lost their crucial encounter against Isipatana on Sunday. Man for man and when one considers the improvement made by the Thomian rugby players as the season progressed, the school by the sea is easily a few notches ahead of the Trinitians. The Thomian side can safely be placed as the fourth best side in the tournament even though they lost to Trinity in their opening match this season.

The beauty of school rugby is that alongside the tournament there are traditional rugby fixtures most schools engage in and these games have to be completed. Some of these rugby matches may not be part of the tournament conducted by the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association. For the record the Thomians have to play against Royal, St. Joseph’s and St. Peter’s; two of which are played for trophies while one is for a shield. Trinity have to battle it out against Royal (not once but twice for the Bradby Shield) while Isipatana have to grant Thurstan – the minnows in the league rugby tournament – a fixture because tradition has it that these two schools play each other for the Abdul Jabbar Shield. For the record, Thurstan are back in Division 1 Segment 1 one of the tournament after earning a promotion from Segment 2.

Back to the super round, each team which didn’t play the other two teams in the league tournament will have two games to complete before the eventual winners is found. Last year St. Peter’s College Bambalapitiya emerged the victor by recording super round wins against St. Anthony’s (39-0) and Isipatana College (22-17). In the overall points table the Peterites finished first and were followed by Royal, Isipatana and St. Anthony’s in second, third and fourth places respectively. St. Peter’s were also the knockout champions last season.

Mention must be made of D. S. Senanayake College which has become a force to be reckoned with in school rugby. This season they finished in third place in their group in the league stage of the tournament. The side had wins against Dharmaraja (44-12), Trinity (14-10), St. Anthony’s (30-17), Sri Sumangala (76-10), Science (29-12) and went down fighting to Isipatana 27-24. Much is expected of this team in the president’s trophy knockout tournament which will be played after the league tournament.

The minnows in the tournament Sri Sumangala and Thurstan have to take their entrance to division one segment 1 as a learning experience. They received some hard knocks this season. Thurstan was humbled by the Peterites who ran down 18 tries against them in a mammoth score of 112 points which went unanswered by the opponents. Sri Sumangala suffered a heavy 76-10 defeat at the hands of D.S. Senanayake. But surprisingly, many thought that Sri Sumangala fared better in the tournament compared to Thurstan. One television channel erroneously made references to Sri Sumangala as a school from Panadura when showing highlights of one of their league round matches this season. This is despite the fact that the school playing rugby is in Katugastota and the other existing with the same name and producing cricketers is situated in Panadura. This goes to prove that earning a name in rugby is so hard even at junior or school level. Most schools which are big names in rugby went through the mill before establishing themselves in this robust sport.