Rugby talk with Siva

Police rugby hits rock bottom

POLICE again lost to Navy by 18 points (3 tries and 1 penalty) to 22 points (1 goal and 3 tries) in their last of the first round matches of the Caltex 'A' Division league rugby tournament and ended two places before the last ahead of Air Force and the Babes" of the tourney Old Zahirians.

With this humiliating defeat Police is out of the super six and is relegated to the last three-Air Force, Police and Old Zahirians who will play in the plate category.

This is the first time the Police had been demoted since the sixties when Police rugby rose from strength to strength winning all the major trophies. The past Police rugby players and their supporters must be sulking in silence at the shame that has been brought upon police rugby.

What ails the police rugby in particular and Police sports in general is the lack of encouragement from the police hierarchy.

This is because most of them do not have a sports back ground and do not know the value of sports except Jayantha Paranthala a former Sri Lankan cricketer and Nimal Leuke, National Rugby player and boxer of repute.

During the good old days we had the good fortune of having officers of the highest calibre who were great sportsmen who held the view that good sportsmen made good policemen.

It is so all over the world. But today in the Police you cannot find a sportsman of national stature unlike in the past when the Police dominated the national teams in rugby, athletics, soccer and cricket.

When we played rugby during the sixties and seventies we had great officers who held the ranks of IG and DIGs who were also great sportsmen such as Osmond De Silva, Sydney De Zoysa, C. C. Dissanayake, S. A. Dissanayake, C. P. Wambeck, Stanley Senanayake, Eleric Abeyagunawardane, Rudra Rajasingham, Tommy Kelaart, Ernest Perera, Frank Silva and W. B. Rajaguru to name a few who enlisted sportsmen to the Police and encouraged sports. But today this is not happening and police sports is down in the dumps.

The present IGP Chandra Fernando who had his education at St. Peter's College, Bambalapitiya, an institution well known for its sports should revamp police sports especially rugby so that police will have a better image in the eyes of the public and will become more people-friendly.

Today rugby is a very demanding game and has become more professional where the leading clubs spend huge sums of money to keep their high standard of rugby going and the players happy.

The police too should develop rugby on the same lines and make the players proud that they are representing the police and if this is done they will be welcome in the best of clubs, best of homes and best of society.

Otherwise they will feel that they are left out in the cold which will drive them to do things unbecoming of true sportsmen such as going to houses of illfame under the influence of liquor and demand free sex which will bring a bad name for the police and also ruin the young lives.

I met DIG Nimal Leuke chairman of police rugger at the CR - Kandy match on Saturday at Longden Place and he lamented at the plight of police rugby as he was not getting the necessary encouragement from the higher ups to make rugby what it was before.

We hope police will soon give more encouragement to sports and bring police rugby to its past glory.

CR & FC outplay Kandy SC

In front of one of the largest crowds seen at a rugby game in recent years the CR & FC played intelligent rugby to outplay the reigning champions Kandy SC by 20 points to 8 points at Longden Place on Saturday.

The massive crowd brought back memories of the Clifford Cup finals of 1967 in which I captained the Police from 'B' division against Gamini Fernando's Havelocks boys at Longden Place which was swarmed by a sea of humanity.

Even the then Prime Minister of the country Dudley Senanayake could not resist the temptation and made a last minute appearance and sat through the entire match and graced the rugby union's president's bar after the game and congratulated the two captains.

The crowds were uncontrollable and overflowing at Longden Place that the police mounted had to be brought in to control the crowd.

The pavilion was unapproachable due to the crowds that the president's bar had to be located in the centre of the grounds after the match and cordoned off by the police mounties.

The crowds on Saturday at the CR - Kandy match even though not as big was akin to that and was a welcome sight and good for rugby.

The two unbeaten teams of the Caltex 'A' Division league rugby tournament CR & FC and Kandy SC who were lying first and second in the league table respectively took the field amidst the cheering packed house and contested each other evenly with ten score running high.

Both teams were prepared to open out the game with their speedy threes but the strong defence of both sides kept them in check.

CR & FC played an intelligent and innovative game to penetrate the strong Kandy defence with their chips and punts ahead which resulted in tries.

But this could not be said of the Kandy players who played a stereo type game like well programmed robots sans any change of tactics which lost them the game.

The match began with both teams matching each other evenly and Kandy got ahead with a penalty by their full back Nalaka Weerakody. CR & FC equalised with a similar penalty by full back Dhanushka Pushpakumara 3-3.

Kandy went ahead again when their threes ran the ball well for their speedy winger and skipper Sanjeeva Jayasinghe to score which went unconverted for Kandy to lead 8-3 at the lemons.

During the second half CR & FC dominated the game with tries by link man Zulki Hamid, Prop Forward Shammil Mohamed and number 8 A. Karthelis.

Pushpakumara converted one of these tries for CR & FC to score a classic win by 20 points to 8 points and remain unbeaten at the end of the first round of the Caltex 'A' division league rugby tournament.

CH & FC and Havelocks win

CH & FC on Friday beat the Old Zahirians in their Caltex 'A' Division League Rugby Tourney at Maitland Crescent by 44 points to 21 points. Again it was Old Zahirians who led at half time by 18-14 as they did in the previous week's game against Havelock but lost in the second half.

Havelocks who have been living dangerously during the entire Caltex 'A' Division League Rugby Tournament first half, managed to beat the Air Force 22 points to 10 points in spite of the Air Force leading 10-7 at half time.

With this win Havelocks will play in the cup championship along with CR & FC, Kandy SC, Army SC, CH & FC and Navy SC, Police SC, Air Force SC and Old Zahirians SC who are lying at the bottom of the league table have been relegated and have to be satisfied playing each other for the plate.