I have seen

Sharm de ALWIS

RUGBY: The sparse spectatorship at the President’s Trophy finals was mute testimony to the public apathy towards the brand of rugby dished out by even the premier clubs in contention today.

The vast number of penalties conceded by both teams is evident of the mistakes made on the run but what was as significant was that there were far too many basic errors in passing and positioning which led to spilt ball; they just couldn’t catch and give!

Both sides played a listless game and waited of things to happen rather than make them happen. Even ‘Palama Yata’ Karthelis who normally indulges in a heady game played below the level of his own excellence as there was no support from his team-mates and mediocre opposition to spark his engine.

Quite a few players sported sausage fat to lend patronage to Keells and Cargills and a poke of a finger would have been two inches deep. Without going into the hoary past, not so long ago the only rotund ruggerite was ‘Bole’ Philips but he mannered the front row quite adequately to be in the CR team for many a year.

With fewer schools taking part in the sport than today and without the technical inputs, boys like Ken de Joodt, often learned on their own to acquire skills by reading, studying pictures and watching their role models at play. They cloaked their coaches with fame. I was glad to be by the TV to listen to Chandrishan Perera’s immaculate description of the proceedings and he too referred to a player of the past, Michael Jayasekera who would frequently hit a quarter gap. I am eternally grateful to Shan for having got Sirisena into the formidable third row of the England team in the World Cup.

Where are the special skills that bench-marked others too, like Ken de Joodt, Didacus de Almeida, Kavan Rambukwella and their ilk? I have seen the 18-year-old Kavan sell three simultaneous dummies to the combined might of Dimbulla/Dickoya in the ‘52 Clifford Cup final and score under the goal posts. Ken combined brilliantly with all types of co-centres including the quixotic John Burrows who often did not know which way he himself would go!

There was the versatility of Lionel Almeida who would excelled with equal finesse as a stand-off, inner-three, winger or fullback. There were other superlative inner-threes like Stanley Unamboowe, Larry Schokman, Lorensz Pereira and Abdul Majeed and when the present crop is seen in comparison surely there are better centres in a box of Kandos.

On the wings there was Dharmasiri Madugalle, double-international Summa Navaratnam, triple-International Basil Henricus and there was ‘Gal’ Hebert Fernando who would nonchalantly move from his pet berth as the finest ever blind side flanker to scorch the sward as a winger and bring down the flyers that the ex-pats could muster.

Of the Horatios on the Bridge Malcolm Wright stands in supreme isolated splendour but were Mahinda Ratwatte, Trevor Anghie and Ananda Bandaranayake far behind?

Up front there have been durable Ashy Cader, ‘bionic’ Hisham Abdeen, Saman Jayasinghe, Priyantha Ekanayake, Haris Omar, Pradeep Basnayake, the awesome combination of Thajone Savanghan and Jeffrey de Jong who would crash-tackle just anyone on the move. And what of those who did wonders when the ball came out of the scrums. Crown Prince S.B. Pilapitiya, Mahes Rodrigo, Denzil Kobbekaduwa and Tony Sirimanne who would make their own signatured breaks and set the threes in motion with Ago Paiva, Nimal Maralanda, Mohan Sahayam and Glen Vanlangenberg hounding down the line.

These are names plucked randomly off the top of the head but there are many more in the deep recesses of the mind of men who played for pride, not money and who have left fond memories of valiant deeds which still echo down the corridors of the Hall of Fame.

With the altruism of sponsors short-change din today’s format the advertisement for Maruti voices the subject quite succinctly ‘Where have all the men gone?”