Await some surprises

The schools rugby season commenced on the 22nd and St Peters College who are the defending champions began their season looking good as they mauled a hapless Dharmaraja College side beating them by 46 points to nil. The Rajans who were promoted to the top segment this year failed to live up to expectation of a side worthy of being in the top tier. The skills they possessed was less than what one would expect of a team that was supposed to challenge a team who were the league as well as knock out champions last year. The score line however does not force one to believe that St Peters will have it easy the year ahead.

While the Peterites showed what they are capable of they do have to polish some areas of the game that may be not necessarily because they are coming out for the first time. An area that I thought that needs to be just right is getting quick ball to the back division. There was a tendency for the scrum half to get the ball away in two movements while having a weakness to take an additional step. These are correctable and there could be improvement as they will face more challenges at the base in the next of their encounters. It was also to the credit of both sides that the game was played in the spirit that one expects in rugby.

The match which was played on Tuesday drew a good crowd of supporters. It would seem that the recent performance of the rugby teams of St. Peters makes their supporters to be behind a champion school rugby team. It was ample proof that playing matches mid week will not attract crowds. It also emphasizes the need of the schools to consider playing their matches mid week where the options of the crowds are less with little competition with clashes to decide between a club and school matches to choose from during a weekend.

Similarly there was a fair crowd at the Wesley vs. Science match played at Bambalapitiya on Wednesday. With ground availability being an issue playing mid week seem to be a good alternative. The fear of less crowd attendance does seem to be a perception and the coming weeks will tell you a better story.

News is also of an entertaining and close match that was played in the hills where Kingswood College beat Royal College by 13 points to 7 in a hard fought game that was played at a furious pace,. While on Friday Trinity stunned Isipatana by a large margin of 29 points to 10, after leading 15-7 at half time.

There were also two matches of the segment 1B played between Wesley College and Science College while the other was between Prince of Wales and Thurstan College. Wesley had a convincing win by 33 points to 10 after being held 14 to 10 in the first half. The Thurstan and Prince of Wales match was a close affair and where Thurstan were winners scoring by 23 points against 10.

During the first week of schools rugby the teams in the top tier played the game as it should be played respecting their opponents while playing it hard same cannot be said in the lower group of segment 1 as there were players were shown the red card in two matches. If the undisciplined behavior is not taken care of in the early stage of the tournament and a strong message of enforcing discipline not sent across the future will see more problems being faced. It is up to the schools section to get their disciplinary team to meet and decide fast without delaying as happened last year.

Looking at the grouping of the schools in segment 1 it seems that there will be interesting rugby on the card s as teams in each group are evenly matched. The fight for supremacy has just begun and it will be interesting and absorbing rugby that will be seen as the weeks get older. It is all too early to place your bets on a particular team. To enjoy a good game of school rugby should be your aim and you are not going to be disappointed.