Joes come of age, while Royal Bomb Squad warms up bench

 St. Joseph's vs Royal

Trinity Vs St. Anthony's

DS vs Isipathana

Dharmaraja vs Science

In spite of consisting only a few tightly contested encounters, the Schools Rugby League of 2024 seems to have truly kicked off this weekend only, as the customary high-quality rugby that everyone is used to was finally dished out in these encounters for the first time this season.

Hope this trend continues to sustain the most critical thinking and fussy rugby enthusiasts, such as yours truly?

St. Joseph’s hosting Royal – 19 July:

As forecasted in last week’s preview, St. Joseph’s College abruptly decided to play “Joes Rugby” for the first time this season, to surprise and entertain the masses at Havelock Park. 

The predicted “click” occurred at the very game that mattered most, in which they had their fair chance of producing a phenomenal upset. Joes constantly pushed (literally as well) to capitalise on every little error made by the opposition, which imposed pressure and worked in favour of the home team. 

In addition, they succeeded in scoring all three of their tries using the forwards by means of pick ‘n drives and driving /rolling mauls, to which the formidable Royal Pack didn’t have much to respond with. Joes formulated and adhered to a comprehensive and leakproof defence tactic, backed by marked and consistent tackling, throughout the entire game. This made the Tuskers’ task to trespass way tougher than it ought to be. The Josephians were also able to carry forward their ball handling precision in this game, with just three unforced handling errors.

Royal College made many blunders in the first half that allowed the hosts to attack constantly and score occasionally. A sum of four unforced errors committed in the former half resulted in the ball being circulated towards their goal line more often. The viewers witnessed one of the worst maul defences showcased by Royal College during the past several years, in which only a fraction of the forwards decided to engage initially following the lineout, that led to the hosts scoring almost an uncontested try. One may wonder if a consensus was being polled, and then the minority decided to go ahead anyway, regardless of the outcomes of the votes count.

Although Royal defended very well most of the time, even at very close proximities to their line of prestige, Joes still managed to breach their forwards after some labouring. This clearly exposes a vulnerability in the Titans’ Pack; or does it? 

While Royal decided to run the ball in the last 20 minutes, even off penalties which was very exciting to watch, their bomb squad was seen sitting pretty and relaxing (AGAIN) on the bench, possibly with a glass of Cider placed somewhere close to them which we could not spot. The squad never stepped into the green field at the Wesley game either, in which even their starting forwards were scarcely utilised. One may wonder as to what might be Dushanth Lewke’s plan for this bulky, mighty squad that was supposed to blow away the opposition in the last 15-20 minutes? The only explanation that one could think of is that they were possibly preserving their pretty faces for a forthcoming wedding banquet.

In spite of dominating and leading at Lemons, Joes fell short of being able to maintain the momentum and pressure throughout the second half. The reason for this is as follows. 

Joes and Royal committed four fouls each in the first half, with Royal committing more handling errors that put itself under fire. However, Royal gave away six penalties in the latter half while Joes were guilty of giving away at least nine, which may have tipped the odds in the visitors’ favour.

Result: Royal beat Joes 28-19 

Trinity hosting St. Anthony’s – 19 July:

Forget the scores; forget who won or who lost. This was one of the best-in-class, fast open rugby played at school level in a long time by both teams. The game progressed at such a fast pace right from the kick-off, that one couldn’t even feel the 70 minutes passing, and coincidentally, this match experience resembled the mid-90s action-thriller flick “Speed”.

Those who were patiently waiting all these years hoping to see Trinity College play their legendary brand of rugby can get a heartwarming intro from this game. For a person who hasn’t seen enough of their style of rugby during the past decades, this seemed quite fitting and adequate to start with. We could now safely state that the Trinity Rugby that most were yearning for, some dying for, and some criticising and condemning bluntly for (yours truly), has finally come back to life!

As Rakesh Pillai was back, so was Antho Rugby. After displaying a horrible and terrible performance in the previous weekend, the St. Anthony’s College coaching crew and the entire team deserves an award for playing a game of rugby as fantastic as this. They should certainly forget the fact that they lost the match and look inside the game they played, and cherish every good and spontaneous thing they did. 

Moreover, if the jerseys hadn’t identified the two teams, one would have had a hard time figuring out who was who, due to the similar natured style of the running rugby played. The only distinguisher by tactic were the maul attacks launched and successfully completed by Antho. There is absolutely no way to describe this game in words, and the readers are strongly encouraged to watch the replay available on the Papare YouTube channel.

However, just like every bright cloud has a dark core, both teams committed acts in violation to the core values of rugby in which they intentionally late charged kickers with the clear intention to cause injuries. These ugly deeds diminished the brilliant, fast, evasive, spectacular, and spellbinding rugby that was showcased by both schools. The respective coaches and masters-in-charge should look into this matter very seriously.

Result: Trinity beat St. Anthony’s 32-17

DS Senanayake hosting Isipathana – 21 July:

At approximately 10 past 4 p.m., the skies above the legendary Sugathadasa Stadium shook and rumbled vigorously, but anyone gazing up would have caught a blanket blue sky with just two isolated petite cirrus clouds perching above the green playing field. As the persistent thundering grew larger and consumed everyone within, exactly like in the midnights of Christmas eves in the early 80s, the Donz double dozen dashed into the field spiritedly to take the centre stage of the arena, and Sri Lanka Schools Rugby. 

At the third stage, the prolonged thundering that was pounding so vividly and vastly, crept inside each and every one present in the stadium to make them feel and be aware that a grand session of rugby is about to commence shortly.

At the first long whistle, the Donz brought the thunderstorm down to the green playing field and on the Green Machine, launching their onslaught, spontaneously causing the unprepared Pathans to fumble a few, and thereby converging further voltage into Donz’s thunderbolts. The constant pressure and discipline maintained by DS in the beginning allowed them to score consecutive tries to lead 12-0 initially.  As foreseen in the preview, the Donz utilised their dominating forwards to pick, drive, and maul the opposition whenever they were halted from running the ball. It was rather shocking to witness the strong Pathana forwards unable to hold off their counterparts, as they were seen driven like a well-oiled wheelbarrow when the hosts scored their second try. On another subsequent occasion, the wheelbarrow was rolled swiftly from 40 to five meters, right onto the doorstep of the visitors.

Isipathana took the field rather complacent and didn’t show their usual bustling energy, hence they weren’t ready as DS thunderstruck. This led to just a few handling errors, but the hosts made maximum use of each opportunity, exactly how they were supposed to, that made these few unforced errors look enormous by the end of the game. 

Isipathana’s primary felony was not maintaining their reformation in abiding the laws. They committed 12 and seven fouls in their last two highly intense games against Science and Trinity respectively, but they let their guard down in this game with at least 18. This further motivated and propelled DS to deliver strike after strike, and took the game down to the wire. Although it was fun for the spectators to watch a close game, Coach Saliya would be very displeased after all the hard work that he and his crew put in, and he wouldn’t be too happy to have to go back to the very same training drills once again.

Although Isipathana initially succumbed to the sheer power of the Donz mauls, they quickly recovered with counter tactics to defeat DS’ key plan. The counter tactic that worked best was to turn over possession at a few crucial lineouts, quite close to their goal line a couple of times, that threw a huge blow to the confidence of the DS hooker and the jumpers, and prevented the formation of DS mauls on other subsequent instances as well. Isipathana had no trouble defending pick ‘n drives, as they were seen defending their territory for what seemed like hours, but mostly successfully, and they would be certainly ready for the invincible Tuskers in this aspect. However, dealing with the Bomb Squad could be a totally different story to tell.

Where did DS go wrong? Essentially, this was already prescribed in the preview last week. “If their ploy is to get three by three, then Coach Asela hasn’t learnt anything from last year and have already lost the plot and the game, hence we can count them out and switch channels already.” This occurred in the first half when DS decided to kick to goal off two penalties offered around the 40m mark. DS started losing the points battle, as they successfully slotted the first penalty, because they lost two or more points that they could have scored instead. With their second attempt at the goal, they potentially lost five to seven points as they missed the target.

Moreover, these two penalty opportunities presented themselves in quick succession, when the Greens were quite vulnerable.

There are some times to take the kick, but there are most times that you don’t, especially when you are playing against a team like Isipathana that is capable of scoring tries at will. Moreover, Isipathana seems to be the only team in the League that seems to understand this very well, each and every year. Now for the record, one more time; ISIPATHANA CANNOT BE BEATEN BY ACCUMULATING PENALTY POINTS; NOT JUST THIS YEAR, BUT ON ANY YEAR! Let’s remind ourselves that the “Green Machine” stands for ‘Try scoring Machine’ and not ‘Penalty scoring Machine’, and hope that every coach dreaming of besting Pathana takes his hat off, and gets this through his thick skull.

A series of heartwarming events unfolded as the last long whistle was blown. While a few DS players laid on the field dejected and heartbroken, a majority of them stood up with their chins held up and immediately started making their way towards the winning team to congratulate them, not merely for pretence, but with utmost sincerity and comradeship that was shown clearly in their body language, which makes one wonder; ‘isn’t this why a sport like rugby was ever invented?’ Although the game was played with extreme ‘passion’ by both teams, it concluded with ‘solidarity’, the two of the five values of rugby.

It absolutely doesn’t matter how one goes down, but what matters is what occurred prior. This was the inspiring message delivered by Donz Rugby in this encounter, where they ignited the game to the maximum and went down in the dying minutes, only to the sheer brilliance of the unstoppable Green Machine.

Result: Isipathana beat DSS 27-24 

Dharmaraja hosting Science – 21 July:

The match prediction cited in the preview for this game went awfully wrong; the prediction read: “this game is forecasted to be a one-sided affair and Science is expected to run away with 30-40 points.” What transpired to cause the tables to be turned?

Dharmaraja further solidified its previously demonstrated capabilities such as intention to retain possession, refined support play that enhances game continuity, perfectly timed ‘jackles’, and flawless tackling. Their overall game seemed more fluid and assertive than the previous weekend after the upset victory over SACK, and therefore elevated themselves to be review worthy in this column, hereon.

Unfortunately, Science College could not match these skills on the day, although they were very much capable of doing so. The paramount mistake of making mistakes coupled with poor tackling spelt demise for the visitors at Bogambara. Science conceded 16 penalties and two free kicks that granted generous multiple-entry access to the Rajans into their territory. 

In addition, the uncommitted, lazy tackles made by the visitors made one wonder if they were reaching down to obtain divine blessings from the fleeting Kandyan oval relic bearers. These shortcomings made attacking in foreign land quite fluent for the Rajans, except that they foiled their own efforts with their fair share of shortcomings; if not, the margin of victory could have been much higher.

Science committed four ‘holding-on’ infringements while attacking inside the opposition’s grid, which either indicates consistently unforthcoming support play or exceptional ‘jackling’ skills of the opposition, that self-destructed their onslaughts regardless. 

To top it off, Science lost four lineouts while throwing the ball in, which disallowed any chances of forming their superior mauls to attack with. It must be restated that a skilful and strong maul is completely useless, and an utter waste of resources poured into building one, unless the forwards are also skilled at securing the ball, at least when they are throwing it in. 

In this current form and state, the future weeks of Science Rugby look blatantly dim.

Result: Dharmaraja beat Science 15-10

(The writer can be reached at: [email protected])