Reminiscences of school rugby of the past
View(s):Another school rugger season has commenced, and perhaps it would be of interest for present fans to look back on an era when rugger began to emerge as a popular sport, with more schools taking to the game.
School matches of that time were played on weekdays, and the matches were of fifty-minute duration, twenty-five for each half, with a five minute break for halftime. There wasn’t a league championship like now, but that did not matter as the matches were fiercely-contested, and the final winner was rugger itself. Entrance to school matches was free, and that included the Bradby Shield, which was the only game that was played for a trophy, and is much different to the present scenario when a minimum rate of a ticket is about Rs. 500. These were certainly free and generous times indeed.
Zahira College Maradana was then a major force to be reckoned with and the year 1962 was a landmark year in its rugby, when they beat Royal, Trinity and St. Peter’s, but it was their game against S. Thomas’ Mt. Lavinia, that could be considered as one of the most memorable of that time. In a game in which no quarter was asked nor given, with neither side having scored well into injury time, it was the Thomian stand off Mohan Samarasinghe who broke the jinx by scoring a try under the posts, converting it himself to give his side a five-nil victory (at that time it was three points for a try).
At the end of the school season there was the annual Gratien Cup fixture, between the Colombo and outstation schools, and from that game a Combined Schools team was selected to play the University of Colombo. Most schools had only one coach, which is also a deviation from the present order of things, where a bench is often lined with a contingent of coaches.
Wasantha Rajandran
Follow @timesonlinelk
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