The tapestry of St. Peter's vs Trinity rugby encounters
Sharm de Alwis
RUGBY: The ultimate, burning desire of every boy who dons his
school's rugby jersey is to a part of the team to beat Trinity because
for long the Kandy school has been considered the cradle of Rugby and it
was they, together with Kingswood, who introduced the game to the
school's calendar.
St. Peter's achieved 'the impossible dream' in only their third
contest in 1935 under the captaincy of Fred Keller against a
star-studded Trinity team led by Rex Breckenridge and having within the
ranks such formidable exponents as O. L. Izadeen, Sammy David, E.
Dodanwela, Hubert Ratwatte, William Molagoda and Stanley Maralanda.
That improbable victory with Archibald Perera, Claire Roeloeffsz,
Stanley Livera, Henry Young and George Kellar lending support to skipper
Fred Kellar was never a flash in the pan because they repeated the
drubbing to read, in all, for five years on the trot, a success story
never equalled by any other school until recently. SPC lost in '40 but
came back strongly in 1941 under the captaincy of W. A. Chandrasena to
beat Trinity again, captained for the second year by S. B. Dissanayake.
The earlier Trinity teams also that St. Peter's beat were veritable
power houses comprising V. K. Vellayan, Duncan Reith, Denham de Alwis,
Willie Jenkins, H. W. Fernando, Bobby Reith, E. R. Jenkins, N. Sammugam.
Percy Madugalle, T. B. Marambe, Douglas Aluvihare, Michael Kogwa and
Eggie Tucker.
The Peterites who dazzled and wove magic on the rugby fields have
stood shoulder to shoulder with their Trinity counterparts and it truly
has been a 'Roland for an Oliver' for who can speak in favour of Jeyer
and Rajah Rodriguesz vs Robert Sourjah and Jinna Dias Desinghe; Travis
de Jong vs Mike de Alwis; Desmond Haridge and Royden de Silva whom the
incomparable Bala Thambiah once pointed out to me and said, 'That fellow
is a gentleman' vs Lucky Vitarane and Eric Roles; Jeoff de Jong and
Angleo Wickramaratne vs Franklin Jacob and Mark Sunderalingam; Sanjeeva
Abeygoonawardena vs Tyrrel Rajapakse; Claire Roeloeffsz vs S. B.
Pilapitiya; Ago Paiva vs Nimal Maralanda; Percy Perera and Rodney
Patternot vs Dharmasiri Madugalle and Ken de Joodt; Henry Young vs
Malcom Wright? Philip Buultjens, alone, stands in solitary splendor as
the finest center-three-quarter ever to grace the country's rugger
fields and even though he scored only three tries in a long and
distinguished career, he made countless openings for others to score.
It is moot to mention that whereas it took only the third outing for
SPC to beat TCK, Royal took 17 years, Zahira 8, STC 6; other schools do
not come into the equation.
After 1941 the series re-commenced only in 1948 mainly due to World
War II and though there has been a drought in terms of SPC wins
virtually every encounter has been fiercely competitive and the margin
of win/loss has been as thin as a cat's whisker and on some occasions
such as in 1985 St. Peter's abandoned the boredom of a series of draws
to notch a pulsating win by 8-0 under the captaincy of Rajith
Abeygoonwardena with the Trinity captain being Manoj Jayatissa.
SPC repeated the win 6-5, nine years later in 1994 with their first
win in the den of the Lions, Bogambara and that was after 53 years, this
time captained by Roshara Alles against TCK's Mohmaed Rally.
Since then SPC has held the whip hand with more wins than draws and
the manner in which they won against St. Anthony's in the curtain raiser
augurs well for a splendid season in this momentous year. |