The wisdom of the knockouts; Lambs for slaughter!
View(s):The burning topic these days is about opening the wrong door or rather knocking on the wrong door. This may be a new sensation to some but in 2013 rugby we have been doing it once too often. I would not say that it was like misidentifying the toilet door as it has been part and parcel of this year. Schools rugby has been chaotic and produced a stink that you may need a whole perfumery to get rid of.
Schools rugby has been taken through that door and possibly the great men in the teaching garb may say that they were sleeping walking. The league is over but the bad taste continues. School rugby, which is treading a chaotic path, has now started its knockout segment, which will help fill the record books. All this while incidents of indiscipline are taking a turn for the worst. It seems that the cancer is spreading while the stat sheets for completion of tournaments are filled.
The league was completed in a way most will want to forget. Players fought each other and brought the Kingswood-St. Anthony’s match to a halt before regulation time. With league rugby finishing amidst madness, it would have been sensible to call a halt to school rugby. Any right thinking educationist would have taken this step. Some believe that it was the money from the sponsors, rather than the game itself, that made officials decide to play the knockout. Of course you need the money to promote the game and prevent it from being taken to the cleaners.
Taking a leaf from the big men in the league, St. Aloysius Galle threatened to walk out in their Chairman Trophy match played against St. John’s College Nugegoda on the July 2. The skill levels of both teams were very low. Having come so far filled with exalted opinions of rugby capabilities no wonder the Galle side thought they should win. The game was very scrappy and there were plenty of mistakes.
What amused me was the threat posed by the team from Galle to walk away citing referee errors.
What was bad was that the person who was instigating the walkout was the person who appeared to be the captain. St. Aloysius Galle was offending at most breakdowns as well as resorting to dangerous lift tackles. I could not have seen a continuity of the game if the referee was to whistle for the countless mistakes that were made. Suddenly the new fashion emerged and the team threatened a walk out. This is something the organisers have to address to stop the game from descending into chaos even at the lower divisions. On the other hand for those who want to take a piece of metal home, the fight can be of any means and need not be limited to rugby skills.
The second match for the day was for the President’s trophy between Trinity and D.S. Senanayake College. DSS, a ‘B’ division side, which seemed to be dragged into the tournament and was a reluctant bride never came to the altar. Trinity had traveled all the way from Kandy and took the centre by themselves watched by a few spectators to receive a walkover. It was a disappointment.
Most matches for the Premier and Chairman’s’ trophy did not materialize and there was one match between Mahanama and Piliyandala MMV which again was an event that went through the motions of rugby.
The only match of significance was the one between Wesley and Science which Wesley won by a narrow margin. The game was evenly contested and gave solid entertainment to the crowd which was present.
Dharmaraja, the schools league champs, pummeled CWW Kananagara, who were hapless and helpless as they showed that there was a huge gap between an ‘A’ division side and a ‘B’ division side. The score was limited to 60 only because the Rajans used the opportunity to make as many substitutes as allowed.
Other than possibly for the semi-finals and the finals, the tournament does not seem to serve a purpose of giving more competition opportunities. The Premier Trophy matches as well as the Chairman’s Trophy fixtures were very much low-skilled. So the question is what objective was expected to be served in this knockout tournament. It would have been better to have not played this farcical knockout and thought of some other method to milk the sponsors. Now it is time for the Union to have a strategy group to map out what is good for rugby for the next year. It is the cradle of rugby that is curdling and needs to be addressed seriously.
- Vimal Perera is a former Rugby Referee, coach and Accredited Referees Evaluator IRB
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus