Rugby: Royal Rugby Fiesta 2016 on November 20

The Group of ’91 Old Boys batch of Royal College, Colombo will conduct their annual touch rugby tournament, the ‘Royal Rugby Fiesta 2016’ on November 20 at the CR and FC ground, kicking off at 8.30am.

This year’s event will be held on a grand scale as it’s the 15th Royal Rugby Fiesta and incidentally the Group of 91 is also celebrating 25 years since leaving college. 

Rugby matches will start at 8.30am and will go on until 6.00pm. 

Spectators can witness exciting touch rugby throughout the day. 

An estimated 25 rugby teams and 1,000 spectators are expected for the event.

In the past, this event has been patronized by leading rugby players from Royal College, some of whom later went on to represent various clubs and the country too. 

The participants include leading personalities from the corporate world and other distinguished professionals such as doctors, engineers, architects, accountants, academics etc.

Matches will be played under the age categories of 20-30 years (Junior Category – for the Summa Navarathnam Challenge Trophy), 31-40 Years (Mid Category – for the Group of ‘91 Challenge Trophy) and 41 plus (senior category for the Senior Challenge Trophy).

Each successive year, the organising committee had made sure that novel items were introduced to make the event more attractive. 

This year too several new items will be included.

With over 500 strong memberships across the world, The Royal Group of 91’ Old Boys have done a lot to their Alma Mater since they left the school in 1991. 

They have started their journey by building an overhead water tank for the junior section of the school.

They also constructed a staff room for primary teachers and gave a facelift to the rifle shooting/weight lifting arena which gave a boost to these two sports. 

They have invested in restoring the connecting bridges of main college buildings and a part of the main parapet wall.

The ‘Royal Rugby Fiesta’ was introduced as a fellowship for the rugby fraternity of all ages and this time will be the 15th consecutive edition of the fiesta. 

This is probably the only tournament of this nature conducted in the country, where rugby fans and players rally together to celebrate both the school and the game.

The first Royal Rugby Fiesta was organized in 2002 with the prime objective of bringing various groups of past students together in order to promote goodwill and togetherness.