Friday Dec 27, 2024
Friday Dec 27, 2024
Wednesday, 26 July 2023 00:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Bradby Leg
Deadlocks were finally broken and the Tuskers were tamed for the second time in the first round, in the Dialog Schools Rugby League on its sixth week. Isipathana DS managed to go one up by breaking the long due deadlock, in line with the majority of the Rugby community’s prediction. They now have only Joes as the final hurdle to reach the Super Round.
Trinity College made an upset in the Hills, toppling the much stronger Royal College in the first leg of the Bradby Shield, which is also counted as a League encounter. Although this win hoists Trinity to the 3rd place in the 2nd Group at the end of the sixth week, they will not be able to surpass Royal’s points tally, and make it to the Super Round.
Let’s have a look at who cracked under pressure during the semi-final week of the 1st Round in the Dialog Schools Rugby League.
DSS hosting STC – 21 July:
An intense struggle to break the deadlock between the contenders for the #2 spot in Group 1 lasted a full 70 minutes, with both teams showing utmost commitment and spirit to succeed. At a certain point in the dying minutes, the match was poised for a draw as well, and everyone might have gone home happily with that result, since both teams showed non-stop enthusiasm and dedication. For instance, the dire intensity and the pursuit for perseverance can be captured in the heavy contentions at rucks, where both teams managed to turnover a similar number of times. Both teams tackled and defended well, even when under heavy fire, from the first to the last long whistle, except on a few occasions.
The Thomians knew from the start that they would not find glory in just winning this game, but their ultimate goal was to reach the Super Round, by winning this encounter with a bonus point. Hence, they strived to target maximum points, at most opportunities presented during the course of the game. Considering the point standings as of match day, STC could get up to only 21 without a bonus point win, in case they suffer a loss to the multi-skilled St. Anthony’s next week. In addition, if DS manages to win their match next week, they would be at a minimum of 22 points. Therefore, STC had no choice but to compute odds vs. points, and decide to go maximum, without opting to kick many easy penalties.
DS simply required a win, as they were already ahead of STC with 17 points, yet they showed class and persistence to go after maximum points as well, most of the time, but not as much as their desperate opponents. DS attacked mostly with their tail, as expected, but they also used their Forwards at times. The Donz had done their homework to up their game, compared to the previous ones in many aspects, as they geared up for the Super Round. They halved both, their infringements and handling errors, that actually made a huge difference in their overall effectiveness, which saved them in this encounter. Their tackling was precise and effective, supported by some poor ball handling and spontaneous decisions by the Thomians, who got themselves under unnecessary pressure.
The Thomians did well defending the fierce DS onslaughts, majority of the time. However in the end, this was STC’s game to lose, which they did quite sluggishly. This was the worst ever outing of the Thomians this season with some scrappy gameplay, mostly during the second half. Their handling errors mostly came about while attacking, thus they could not even make it past the DS 22 most of the time; needless to say, that most of these were unforced errors. They also seemed to enjoy choking themselves inside their 22, by repeatedly trying to run the ball through the dynamic and hard defending oppositions, repeatedly. One cannot find any other reason for them to have done this continuously, other than recreation, as their star touch kicker was seen in the playing field as well.
In the end, it was quite shocking to find DS had beaten STC by only 3 points, whereas it should have been by 20 or more. This makes one realise that the Mount Lads were better at grabbing fleeting Legs than flying balls.
Trinity hosting Royal – 22 July:
Royal College had done their homework to fix all of the shortcomings from last week, only to go berserk on infringements that cost this game for them. Shan Althaf was already able to gain major real estate for Trinity by his touch kicking, and Royal’s 15 odd fouls added to the acres gained. This made Trinity’s primary task of “continuous attack” too easy, as they spent a majority of the time attacking in the visitors’ grid.
Why was this a close game then? Shouldn’t Trinity have had this easy? It all began with the match pressure for the 16-year-old place kicker, who missed two penalties within kicking range in the first half itself. Trinity lost most of their scoring chances due to an exceeding number of knock-ons, few of them owing to tight defences, but most of them being voluntary. Therefore, Trinity was scoreless and trailed nothing to 10 at the breather. Although Trinity managed to keep their infringements to a minimum, their handling errors held them back from attacking effectively.
They did well in defence, not allowing the powerful Royal Forwards to dictate terms. They managed to hold and foil Royal mauls on more than a few occasions, and succeeded on a maul turnover as well, which is an achievement on its own against the mighty Tuskers. It is highly likely that the Coaching staff of Trinity, scientifically measured Royal Forwards’ weight, force and power, and then trained the Trinitians to withstand and counter exactly that cumulative power.
Shan Althaf helped Trinity gain territory with many kicks to touch, especially with some during open play that proved invaluable. He also perfected a 50:22 in the second half, but Trinity failed to make Hay, as they knocked the ball on, only inches away from Royal’s goal line.
The Royalists have only themselves to blame for losing this encounter, as their continuous infringements allowed Trinity to attack from the first occurrence of the foul, and every five minutes thereafter, until the final long whistle was blown. This also minimised Royal’s possession of the ball to even contemplate an offensive. Although Trinity’s infringements were few, both the Royal Tries came about directly from the plays proceeding the penalties awarded for those fouls. One can now expect Royal to curtail infringements by the 2nd leg, but turn up with a freshly brewed crisis, so that all Rugby lovers could enjoy an evenly contested game.
Pathana hosting Wesley – 22 July:
Wesley turned up confident and with a precise gameplan to take on the defending Champions. They knew very well that their strength was their Forwards, so they used them to attack with pick ‘n drives, and managed to easily cut through the Pathana Forward defences. Isipathana was unable to stop the powerful pick ‘n drives that were mostly initiated from the visitors’ territory, and were easily propelled close to their 22, within a matter of minutes. Wesley’s second motive was to stay in Pathana’s prime land attacking hard, and squeeze out penalties, which they did quite comfortably, and at one point were leading 6-5. Everything changed after Wesley missed their 3rd penalty within kicking range inside Pathana’s grid. Instead of leading 9-5, Wesley was suddenly seen giving away successive penalties out of the blue, and that was all the Greens needed to break out of their Chains, and go on a full assault mode.
The home team did score their first Try before Wesley could even warm up by initiating a rolling maul, and the handful of Wesley Forwards who engaged were blown away like Paper in the Wind. Thereafter the visitors woke up, and gave the home team constant trouble. However, Isipathana did well in defending their goal line whenever Wesley attacked with the Forwards in the same fashion, and this is something that should be much-admired. Wesley took some time to finally remember that they had a starving Back line waiting forever in the Pathana 10, before they could activate it and finally score a corner Try. Once Wesley invited the hosts into their 50, and further infringed, Pathana mostly opted to tie down the Wesley Forwards in scrums, and attacked with their three quarters to succeed more often than not.
Apart from the initial uplifting performance, Wesley didn’t make any of their spectacular offensives that were carried out throughout the game count, due to their own offenses that exceeded 10. When you are an underdog and up against an unbeaten team, the first thing that you should leave behind is your sack of burdens. Notably Wesley also missed or opted not to take 3 penalties; otherwise, the final tally could have been 24-20.
Peter’s hosting Science – 22 July
33 fouls, 17 unforced knock-ons and other forms of handling errors undecorated a fine Saturday evening proceedings with nearly 50 stoppages, that no sane spectator would want to watch even for free, making this encounter a top contender for the worst Rugby game of the season!
This substandard type of gameplay is not acceptable even in the B and C Segments of Schools Rugby. This is the lowest level of gameplay that one may put up with, when junior Rugby teams transitioning from tap Rugby to classic Rugby, learn to follow the laws of the game, and learn to pass the ball during match time pressure for the first time. Both teams adamantly competed to be worse than the other, and finally equally shared the exact same number of spoils. Science went one step further to exhibit how a trained Rugby Player can miss 3 place kicks, right in front of the Posts, and only 10 meters away; Anyone, of any age from the crowd, couldn’t have done any worse than that!
The Coaches must ensure that the teams get their basics right, before training on tactical and skilled gameplays, because it is neither fun watching nor playing games like this. Thus, earnest prayers go out to the Gods of Rugby, that no spectator should undergo this ordeal and suffocation for 70 continuous minutes, at any 1st XV Rugby event in the future.
St. Anthony’s hosting Kingswood – 23 July:
The Kandy Rugby enthusiasts made their way to Pallekele, to fill up the Grand Stand on a sunny Sunday evening, for a much fan-engaged evening of Rugby. The spontaneous, unanimous, and harmonious booming outbursts for every little thrill and spill was far more captivating than the Rugby that was played in the middle. This showed the constant attention of the spectators from start to finish, and verified the passion for Rugby in Kandy!
To everyone’s surprise, Kingswood commenced this encounter with an attack with their Forwards employing pick ‘n drives, executed quite well to push through to the opposition’s goal line. What seemed relatively easier from Antho’s 40, suddenly seemed quite impossible, as the Antonians did very well with their goal line defence, although infringing a bit while doing so. The first poor decision that Kingswood made was to settle for 3 points for a penalty offered on Antho’s 5m line. A little more pressure by the Kings’ Forwards may have caused the Antonians to divulge at the goal line, but seemingly, the former hadn’t realised that this game cannot be won by penalties alone, as the latter would be determined to score at least 4 Tries, and could certainly succeed as well, especially given the reputation of the Kings’ defence.
Kingswood performed much better in all of the set pieces than their counterparts, turning over at least on four occasions. Although their knock-ons have been worked on and been reduced considerably, other forms of handling errors crept in to offset their improvements. Although the Kings began the game in a composed and promising fashion, it was only a matter of time before they started giving the game away by infringing constantly, thereby letting St. Anthony’s dominant proceedings.
Although SACK could have won this game by a higher margin, their sloppy ball handling and their continued negative attitude towards following the laws of the game, made them look mediocre, in the final weeks of Round 1.
Vidyartha hosting Zahira – 23 July
Zahira College returned to the Hills to smell sweet victory once again, against a bruised and reduced Vidyartha unit. As expected, they attacked with the Forwards mostly and quite successfully, to advance towards the home team’s goal line; however, they failed to encash some of their moves due to infringements. These infringements also disallowed them to be in attacking positions on many occasions, but instead gave the hosts a chance with the ball. Although Zahira won this game quite convincingly, there was little or no exciting news to write home about. Though, one thing that they could write about is, how much they missed home, that they didn’t want to spend a single minute more trying to get the bonus point that could bring their points tally on par with Trinity, as they opted to abandon their last chance with the ball to attack and score their fourth Try. Maybe the reason to do so was because they were so confident that they would beat Trinity at Maradana next weekend?
Vidyartha did reasonably well to counter a stronger and heavier Forwards unit from Colombo, although they infringed quite a lot when doing so. Their Backs were mostly restricted by fine tackling by the visitors, hence the spectators couldn’t witness much of the fancy three quarter skills of the Tigers. Surprisingly and unusually, Vidyartha never used the scrum to lock down the opposition Forwards, whenever they were awarded penalties close to Zahira’s 22. It could be that the replacement Captain had other plans for this game that didn’t materialise.
