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by Sharm de Alwis

Sam Abraham, who played with distinction for the Royal Ceylon Air Force in rugger was found dead by his German wife, Jutta, in the garden of their Dusselberg residence. He had had a massive heart attack and had died without penance.

Sam played for Combined Services Vs Up-Country in '62 and, in the same year helped Combined Services to beat Calcutta 11-10 at the All-India Tournament held in Calcutta. But let his comrade in arms, M. Maheswaran take you through the scarlet passage of Sam's rugby career.

Sam joined the Royal Ceylon Air Force in '59 straight out of St Peter's. A towering figure, he was quickly absorbed into the RCAF rugby team, then under the able guidance and coaching of Harry Gunathileka and Paget Jackson, the brother-in-law of Sydney de Soyza.

His first game was against the formidable CR&FC. But, with strenuous training and splendid guidance Sam hit the headlines by out-jumping the top three in Club circuit - Rodney Ingleton, Ashy Cader and Eric Roles. CR had all the big guns. Air Force only had Ranjith Abeydeera, the captain, Bull Khalid, Sandy Gomesz, Bunny Van Twest, Jeff Rutnam, Raj Rodriguesz and the untried Sam with Maheswaran as a reserve.

That the RCAF upset the apple cart to romp away winners by 21-0 was a tribute to their coach, Jackson, who handled the team in the absence of Harry Gunathileka who was out of the island to follow a staff course.

Sam never feared to jump high as he had two solid props in his school contemporaries, Raj Rodriguesz and Sandy Gomesz who were like landing pads. Another protector was 2nd rower, Bull Khalid Snr, a boxer of repute.

The highlight of the match, apart from Sam's spectacular winning of the ball in 10 out of 10 line-outs was Ranjith Abeydeera unleashing a cracking tackle on Noel Bevan who had to be carried off the field.

Bertie Ekanayake was injured in the second half and Maheswaran came in as fly half and after a memorable performance he continued to occupy that berth until he left the Air Force.

In the second game of the season, Sam out-jumped Hubert Aloysius, Bentley Barsenbach and Eric Bartholomeusz of Havelocks. In the game against CH&FC Sam out-jumped Peter Sawdy and John Banks. Against the Police he had the better of 'Patholaya' Chandradasa and Pussella. Against the Merry Men of Uva, Sam scaled the heights to win ball over J. T. Pettigrew and Vivian Blaze.

Dimbulla's Mike Waring and David Parker also fared badly against Sam. Sam carried everything before him even against the Army which had Lucky Vitarane, Sarath Wijesinghe and R. P. Liyanage.

Coach, Harry Gunethileka, was a martinet and a perfectionist. Postmortems would be held at the first practice after a match. "Hey, Sam, you won lots of ball in the line-outs and you also scored a try thereby we managed to draw the game. Thank you.

Anyway, on the whole you played a piss, poor game. I saw you only at the line-outs, waiting to jump. Rucks and mauls or even break-down points I saw you trotting to join the forwards at play.

Are you reserving your energy only to jump? Thoroughly unfit and you don't tackle. So, do some fitness training and tackling on your own."

From that day onwards Sam was seen carrying the tackling bag and training his body apart from early morning.

All this body-racking manoeuvres and the coach's stinging indictment, "don't tackle" had to be worked to the logical conclusion. The first to pay was Dicky Hermon of Dimbulla, a fast breaking wing forward on the verge of playing for the Country who had collected the loose ball and was sprinting towards the gravy line when Sam from nowhere came pounding to unleash a haymaker of a tackle that put paid to Dicky's rugby career.

Army's big, burly Sarath Wijesinghe was marking Sam in the line-outs and with the assistance of Parry Liyanage, did not allow Sam to jump for the ball. All these tricky nonsense was closely monitored by Bull Khalid, Sam's second row partner. They decided to get Sarath on a loose maul and teach him the lesson of his life. Army was awarded a penalty ten meters away from the Air Force goal line.

Denzil Kobbekaduwa called upon Sarath Wijesinghe to take a short tap and barge through with his weight and might. As Sarath took the short tap Khalid and Sam went into action, Khalid taking him low and Sam putting the finishing touches by dashing Sarath on the ground. Dr. H. I. K. Fernando had to attend to the serious knee injury on the touch lines.

Sam Abraham's last game whilst in the Air Force was when he played for the Services team against All-Ceylon, captained by Nimal Maralanda, a game which was drawn 6-6 at Longden Place in the All-India Tournament. The Services team was captained by Denzil Kobbekaduwa.

After leaving the Air Force, Sam had a short stint with his brother Richard at the Havelocks and then he gave up and went away.

Harry Gunethileke was not to be desolate. He quickly put Lofty Perera and Rohan Guneratne through the paces and made champion line-out specialists out of them for the Air Force.

Maheswaran laments the lack of skills in rugger. Whereas in those days the spectators would shout "well jumped" now it is "well lifted." There are no "Well hooked, Mike" or "Well hooked Frankie." It is "Well put scrum half."

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