Trinity's great escape against St Peter's

SHARM de alwis

Although I was accommodated in the Peterite VIP tent it was amidst a pride of Lions that I sat and listened to their escapades in the series over the years. There were five rugger Lions in Jayantha Jayawardena who captained in 1961 to beat SPC 19-nil; MTM Zaruk whose team of 1965 had won 8-3; Ajith Abeyaratne whose teams of 1967 and '68 had won 8-nil and 13-nil, respectively; Jupana Jayawardena who had played a crucial role in Glen Van Langenberg's team of 1966 to draw the game 8-8 with a death whistle try; Niranjan Ranasinghe who played under Rohan Sourjah's captaincy to win his Lion and the game in a whiskering score of 8-7. Two other Lions were mute only because they were from the blades of grass of cricket fields but Himendra Ranaweera and Jayan Ratwatte were Lions all the same and Jayan had scintillated as stand-off or inner-three in the best of company.

Sujith Silva, the sharp blade of the Peterite Rugby Foundation brought two ladies to sit with me and it truly was an honour because they were none other than Audrey Perera, Archibald's widow and Winifred Young who is the widow of Henry Young the Trinity Boxing captain and Lion of 1935. Winifred is a sprightly 80 and had been 17 years younger than Henry who had been a stickler about his intake of food even though he had worked in the Department of Food Control because as a front line jockey he could not burden the horse. Both husbands had decamped from Trinity and together with another ex-Trinitian Claire Roeloffsz, were match winners for St Peter's in only their third outing in the series with Trinity which had commenced in 1933.

I had an affinity with both ladies because I had packed Henry Young's heavy baggage and Archibald Perera's son Sunil when they emigrated to Australia many moons ago. So it was a comfortable chat we had, chewing on memories, specially those of their husbands who, even though they were firm pillars of St Peter's had had a soft corner for the old school which had nurtured them in their sapling years. I had also been a class-mate of Archibald Perera's two brothers, Ridley and Owen.

Two facets about the gentlemen are worth recording: Henry Young it was who introduced to Ceylon the concept of the the full-back's over-lap and it was a mere three years after the NZ All-Blacks had implemented it in World rugger. Archibald Perera coached St Peter's for 26 years and churned out champion ruggerites from Ago Paiva, Didacus de Almeida, Ronnie Gunaratna, Darrel Wimalaratna, the three Paternott brothers, Jeff and Travis de Jong, Angelo Wickramaratne, Frank Hubert, his own son Sunil who captained SPC in 1969 and so many others too numerous to mention. He produced more champion ruggerites than any other coach in the country.

As we sat, engrossed in conversation, the players took to the field and produced a game that was of a scale of drama. TCK scored within three minutes of the flare off when Kennon Armstrong made a power packed run. He who is built like William Molagoda was to repeat the run twice again and Ajith who observed the lad's girl friend seated behind the goal posts sent an SMS to the effect that she would be given similar seating at the Bradby a week hence to make the boy hare towards her and the glory line.

Akila Dissanayake also quickly got into the act after Kennon's initial burst but limped off and it is hoped that he will be able to take the field this week-end against Royal.

Even though TCK ran in 33 points to 7 at the half way mark they were to give in the second half a pathetic display of positional play which left the defence in tatters. Their fitness levels are also suspect and it will not be in vain if they make use of Udawattakelle for road work and their swimming pool for under water swimming to build lung power. As it is I wonder if 'feeble' is to be spelt T R I N I T Y.

SPC sans their captain Dilshan Paul and his deputy Keith Gurusinghe ran circles around the hapless Trinitians in the second half. They scored willingly to add to their first half goal scored by Chamrath Maduranga and the architects were many although the ball carriers over the line were Dhanushka Ranjan, Bharuka Nanayakkara, Sayora Anthony and Sandun Herath. Had they matched their brilliance of the second half in the first 40 minutes SPC would have been the worthy winners of a battled game.

TCK scored through Kennon Armstrong [3], Akila Dissanayake and Damith Dissanayake. They were ominous when with ball but were hopelessly hapless in defence, being often out of position. The captain who won his Lion last year when he played as winger has still to get accustomed to his new position as an inner-three and the line should form deeper for effective thrusts and parry.

If Time be an elastic that could be stretched I was sure Sujith Silva of the SPC Rugby Foundation would have stretched it for another ten minutes for SPC to pile on the agony against the wilting Trinitians.

Sujith thinks that "in the absence of their captain and his deputy, Shehan Dias at number 8 lacked the experience to control the scrum, thereby losing good ball. SPC gave too much room for the Trinity forwards to roam about, specially off the scrums and mauls. SPC dearly missed their experienced third row.

But the manner in which they fought back in the second half was amazing and was, arguably, one of the best rear-guard actions in the recent past. The previous time had been against STC in 2001 during the President's XV semi-finals. That they scored three goals and a try in the second half was monumental and was because they decided to run the ball wide even from their own 22. It was a fitting finale to the 69th encounter which commenced in 1933."

Synopsis by Ajith Abeyaratne, Chairman of Rugby Selectors:

"One of the great games. Normally high scores are registered by one side. Here both sides scored. Not even club rugger has this type of open rugby.

"But, from a techinal point of view, Trinity does not know what to do when not with ball. When in possession they are quite aggressive and indulge in copy book passes over several phases. Their play is an object lesson for club players. They moved ball from both flanks. Kennon Armstrong made the difference. His high-knee action makes him quite a deceptive runner. He scored thrice and made the opening for the fourth. Had he been a stand-off, he would duplicate Glen Van Langenberg in breaking free of tackles. The present stand-off is adequate after last year's Yatawara. The basics adopted by both teams were in order. Trinity has a place kicker after Nuwan Fernando."