“Enjoy the sport, rest will follow” – Trinity Principal
The First XV team, went on to win the U-20 7s title after 40 years
The Principal of Trinity College, Kandy, Andrew Fowler-Watt outlined the importance of having a well-composed and balanced approach between academic and extra-curricular activities, in order to help the younger generation to reach goals in life. This, he stated on the onset after Trinity won two important titles in rugby — the Under-14s 10s Tournament and the Inter-School Under-19 Rugby 7s, within a lapse of few weeks.
Trinity, the other half of Royal College, engaged in the prestigous Bradby Shield encounter, which is now over 75 years old, has failed to make an impact in the First XV Schools Rugby League in the recent times, as Fowler-Watt sincerely attempt to adhere the traditions of the Hill Capital school. But he was contended with the fact that, his boys are beginning to enjoy the game with smiles.
“I think if you play with a smile on your face, you would probably get better results. I think one of our problems is we still try desperately to get the boys play for love and in the right way. I say to them frequently, we’d rather lose playing the right way, rather than winning playing the wrong way. Unfortunately we are not on a level playing field, because few other schools don’t play like that. It’s hard for us to compete on a level playing field because schools like that play professional rugby, where boys train 12 hours a day on the rugby ground, they never go to school at all,” the educationalist hailing from Scotland, told the Sunday Times.
The Under-14s clinched the Schools 10s tournament
Since Fowler-Watt took office as the Principal four years ago, Trinity was close, yet too far from winning the Schools League title, and more to their misery, lost the grip of the Bradby Shield since 2014. However, inclusive of two ties, the Hill Capital school still leads the overall tally by 39 wins to 34 against Royal from 75 years of fierce battle. With failed missions after tested years at the Bradby, Fowler-Watt is of the view that Trinity’s good days are around the corner, with the two titles they gained few weeks ago.
“It’s a nice feeling to see the Under-14s winning the 10s championship, and it was a total surprise when Rashen Bandaranayake, and his average team outsmarted better teams to clinch the Under-19 7s title after 42 long years. These wins are a blessing and booster for the next First XV rugby season,” he added.
But Fowler-Watt strongly believes that the Schools Rugby League system as well as the whole of school’s sports structure should be overhauled, with the true value of sportsmanship fading away. The reason to his opinion was clearly based on how schools sports, rugby in particular, has become way too competitive, that the Schools League has become the core competition, far interest-generating than the National League Championship.
“I do feel very sad that rugby in this country has moved from being a schoolboy game to something as not as pleasant as that. If I could wave a magic wand, my personal view is that we should stop the league altogether for three or four years, re-colour it, go back to playing traditional games and then maybe start the league again in a slightly different way. All these components such as sponsorships, live streaming and financial backing, has made a schoolboy game more than it, perhaps, should be. But I don’t think it will ever happen,” observed Fowler-Watt.
Skipper Reshan Bandaranayake led the team
Another observation that the foreign Principal has made on Trinity sports, is the lack of ‘Double Lions’, which was common during the bygone era. The Trinity ‘Lion’, is considered the highest honour a student from the Kandy school could obtain during his tenure as a student as well as a sportsman. The last occasion it was awarded was on the present First XV captain Reshan Bandaranayake, at an assembly session, where the Under-19 7s Rugby title was handed over to the Principal in front of a crowd.
“You should have seen his face, the emotions and joy when he was announced a ‘Lion’ recipient. That’s how important it is for a Trinitian to earn it. Reshan’s face showed how surprised he was to obtain the hard-earned accolade. That’s the real passion of representing your school at the highest level, that’s the result of really enjoying the game and in return recording wins,” highly elated, perhaps far beyond the rugby skipper, an emotional principal, said.
Random change of Head Coaches in the Trinity rugby setup is considered as another key area the school failed to gain momentum, despite having skilled players. At the time of Fowler-Watt’s arrival former Ireland player Eric Miller was in-charge, but he was replaced by former Trinity flanker Sean Wijesinghe, who made a brief coaching stint. Former All Blacks player Lote Raibabula was in-charge for nearly two years, and was replaced by another former Trinity player Imthi Marikkar. New Zealander Matt Lee took reigns for another two-year term but he too walked away after last year’s season, which had mixed results. And for the upcoming season the Trinity side will be coached by another All Black, who even had the honour of leading the side.
Trinity Principal, Andrew Fowler-Watt
“It’s been four years since I came here and it’s an interesting journey. We haven’t had successful seasons on paper, we had a large number of coaches – five head coaches in four seasons, which is not good for any team. We desperately need continuity. We just appointed Rodney So’oialo, who captained the All Blacks with 62 caps for New Zealand. He’s a very nice man, he was part of the team as a consultant. But anyway we just have to do our best. We are team that everybody wants to beat, unfortunately we haven’t won the Schools League since the 1980s. We won the 7s championship this year and it was such a great thing, we haven’t won it since 1977. We were nearly there quite a few times, but they still all want to beat us. I’m sure we will have good times coming back Trinity’s way,” the Principal revealed.
Despite the narrow shaves of missing out the Schools League title in the recent years, Fowler-Watt had his reasons to justify schools rugby in Sri Lanka, if the competition could be conducted in a better way. He explained that it would be brilliant, as there are teams that come very close to winning the title.
“In any given day any team could beat the other, sometimes the favourites, which is good. But the large number of the matches, actually come down to a few refereeing decisions, where the whole composure of the game is turned upside down, unfortunately. In addition the schools don’t move on from a game to another, because they play with the only ambition of winning the title. Earlier you play your game, shake hands and you move on. Nowadays its totally different, with the competitiveness. It’s not the end of the world for teams like Trinity.”
All Fowler-Watt expect from his boys is to play for the love. Moreover, he explains. the skills they (boys) learn through the game and life, will help carry them through in the future disregard of which profession they chose.
“If you can’t communicate, if you can’t work in a team, if you can’t be creative, if you can’t be a thinker, you not going to go anywhere in life. And the local academic curriculum does not allow you to be any of those, unfortunately. It penalises for being yourself. Then things like sports actually helps develop the crucial life-skills.”
“That’s the reason why schools like Trinity and Royal have scored in the past. It’s not only what learn inside the classroom, the world is becoming such a competitive place, you have to gain qualification from your school in order to be successful. In the professional field, whether you are an employee or employer, having played rugby to a decent standard, will always give you the lead. That’s why I always have the view why a boy should play a sport, not necessarily rugby.”
Fowler-Watt commended the role that Trinity’s ‘Scrummage’ contributes into its rugby. Though almost all schools have Old Boys’ wings, Trinity’s Scrummage is slightly different others.
“We are a school and we need to be in-charge of things. And on the whole, with the help and guidance from the old boys, we are doing really fine. They (Scrummage) are in-charge of the coaches and we do have a code of conduct to our coaches, which says things like ‘you can’t show any favourism, you have to justify why a boy is in the team or not in the team, you can’t take bribe or gifts, you have to behave in an appropriate way with the language and dress, just basics and that applies to all sports at Trinity.”
Fowler-Watt intends to adhere the value of playing for the love of the sport, be it any sport, with passion among all Trinitians, while also faring well in academic commitments. As the principal of the school, a lover of sports, he makes sure to attend at all sporting events Trinity partakes, with the pure intention of motivating the young athletes and make them feel wanted and fuel them further to become good citizens of Sri Lanka, as the Hill Capital school has been always reputed for.