Peter’s, Royal steal the limelight

The semi-final week kicked off on a working day with packed stands at the St. Peter’s Rugby Stadium, but the visitors miserably failed on making it a match to remember for all the right reasons. What should have been a reasonably easy game for the hosts was made extremely easy, wholly due to the faults of the visitors.

Similarly, Isipathana College irritated their fans by playing a game full of blemished attacks, that they were mostly unable to cash-in, which caused the game to fall, well short of delivering the usual Pathana experience.

Peter’s hosting Anthony’s - 11 Aug:

“This game is guaranteed to showcase some excellent skill-plays by both teams, and one can bet that SACK will not take SPC’s onslaughts lying down!”

The preview of this match concluded with the above sentence, but sadly and disappointingly, none of it happened. What actually happened was that 30 players played for the same side that contributed towards a landslide victory for the hosts. The SL Schools Rugby community is very happy for Antho Rugby, and appreciate how far they have come, with the multitude of skills they possess both in offense and defence. They are also very thankful to their new Coach Srinath for dazzling them with some impressive and spectacular Rugby during the League games. However, in the interest of Antho Rugby, some things that are hard to swallow must be said, so that we could witness a much superior Antho side at least in the next season.

Although the Eagles tackled and defended well, they commenced their habitual infringements early on in the game, and continued to keep them coming, so that their hosts were able to capitalise on most of them to score. This has been their main issue from the first game of this season, and has not been addressed as yet, possibly because the coaching staff don’t conceive this to be a problem, but as an achievement. 13, 16, 14, 18, 12, 12 and 12 were the number of infringements that they have very religiously maintained in their 7 games this season. 16 and 18 were the ones they lost against DS and Pathana respectively, while 14 was the one against Wesley which they managed to scrape through. The other numbers may not be so harmful when playing against mediocre teams, but 12 against a top dominating team spells nothing short of ‘the end’. 7 unforced errors in addition, ensured that most of the onslaughts launched by the Eagles didn’t require any form of defensive action to be taken by the Bamba boys.

Apart from the boys of Kandy giving their fullest support to the hosts to complete a spellbinding victory, some coaching concerns prevail as well. It appears that the SACK coaching staff haven’t done any homework in preparation, specific to SPC for this encounter. For instance, the maul attacks were carried out as if SPC was an unknown alien team from another Planet. By the end of Round 1, SPC had revealed a number of options that they employed to counter mauls successfully against many teams. However, Antho played as if they had no clue about it, succumbing every single time with the Ball in hand, and allowing turnovers at times. Some of these occurred close to the hosts’ 5m line, where scoring opportunities were lost.

Although it seemed that the tactic the visitor’s planned was to repeatedly kick into the playing area of the opposition, almost nothing was actioned following the kicks. One was able to observe only 1 and sometimes 2 players, quite reluctantly chasing the kicks that allowed the hosts to advance more often than not. To make this play hurt even more, SPC succeeded in two 50:22s due to the sluggish chasing, (or not chasing), that makes one wonder as to what they have been trained at practices?

One of the best traits of this Antho unit is possessing multiple skills in various forms of aggression and defences. However, none of these were seen to improve in their execution and effectiveness over the course of the season. In other words, you can call Anthony’s the ‘Jack of all skills, but master of none’. Antho Rugby should realise that mastering a few key skills is sufficient to become a top team, as long as the game basics are kept polished at all times. 

• Result: Peter’s beat SACK 39-Nil

Royal hosting Isipathana - 12 Aug:

The Jurassic Park has never been greener, and its arena not ever so rampant in recent years, as its Grandstands and the Sky Pavilion (upper) hosted standing spectators, depicting a Season Finalè setting. The lower Sky Pavilion was also sold out with many Rugby fanatics held outside locked gates, left to only imagine the raging combat between two of the most celebrated Schools for Rugby in the country.

Although the battle was fierce from the first second to the last, the Greens failed to deliver to their impatient and hyper counterparts in the Pavilions. In short, Royal did their homework perfectly and turned up for this encounter with minimal weaknesses, whereas Pathana had only worked on defence exquisitely, but never bothered to cure their critical ailments. Kudos to Dushanth Lewke for perfecting the Tuskers’ game at the right time. Had they done this earlier, Royal could have won the first leg of the Bradby with ease.

To everyone’s surprise, Royal played a normal game of Rugby without being interested in overpowering or intimidating their leaner opponents. They played their usual running game, and used the Forwards only when necessary as they do typically, and then attempted to finish their moves with the Backs. They showed modesty by respecting Isipathana, and opting for penalty points as opposed to the maximum, at every given chance. They played a good game of Rugby without any psychological pressure whatsoever that allowed them to hit the peak of their abilities. The most important homework that they had worked on was to keep the basics of the game in top shape. 2 unforced knock-ons, 0 crooked throws, 0 forward passes, and 0 passing errors. To top it off, they had also worked hard on minimising their infringements that made the notable difference between the two teams. Although they lost 2 lineouts due to their own blunders, they ensured that they never let the masters of turnovers succeed even once, in the jumping game.

Isipathana on the other hand, came into this match as they were in their last encounter against Wesley, with a ton of infringements and handling errors in almost every form that you could find in the game of Rugby. A grand total of 22 combining both, that cannot be an attribute of a top team in ‘Segment A’, whereas Royal aced them with just 12. Their top infringements being ‘offside line’ and ‘not releasing’, and despite, it was surprising indeed that Royal couldn’t better Isipathana by 15 plus points with all those inferiorities.

In fact, it was amazing to see the Pathans fighting their way through all these deficiencies until the end. The featherweight Pathana Forwards were able to confidently hold-off and completely disarm the Tuskers’ weapon of mass destruction, the rolling maul, compelling the hosts to seek other options. It was even more remarkable to see the Greens tackling extremely well throughout the game, be it the battering Ram of the Royal Forwards, or the fast-fleeing Backs, forcing 4 errors. This bravery was their biggest asset that enabled them to lose with a bonus point. 

‘Zigzag’ Zumri was not in the starting lineup of the visitors due to tactical reasons. The fact that Zumri was brought in only in the 40th minute, makes one wonder if it was a bit too late, while the weak links were at work majority of the time that caused the series of handling errors that in turn deprived them of scoring opportunities.

• Result: Royal beat Pathana 22-17