Kandy’s Bluff Exposed, Caves in to Colombo Sadism

By: Callistus Davy

Feb.17 (Mirror Sports) - Defending League rugby champions Kandy SC are poised to go against the very ethics they pontificated to stand for by consenting to contest a play-off match to decide the winners of the 2025-26 League, the Daily Mirror learns. For more than 20 years Kandy SC defended its jealously guarded and hard-earned status as the country’s history-making Premier domestic club that took rugby to more people in a way that none of the elite clubs in Colombo had ever done.

By winning the League title comprehensively in a way no other club had done, Kandy SC were grudgingly acknowledged the undisputed and accepted winner of the country’s best prize in the sport without diluting it in a so-called “play-off” or “grand final”. The Daily Mirror of November 10, 2025 exclusively reported Kandy SC’s stand against any knock-out match to prove the worthiness of the League winner irrespective of who ends on top at the end of both rounds as has been the case throughout the years.

“Changing the format of the League tournament one week before the commencement of the tournament is certainly not good governance”, the Daily Mirror report of November 10, 2025 stated by quoting the letter fired to Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) by Kandy SC’s president Mahesh Weerasinghe.

The Daily Mirror is in possession of Kandy SC’s letter that further conveyed to SLR’s newly elected president Pavitra Fernando that it will not play in a knock-out match even if they end second in the points table at the completion of both rounds of matches.

In a further shot at SLR, Kandy SC had also told Fernando that the best way to enhance rugby’s domestic image is to improve refereeing and coaching standards and not dilute the league format. Fernando replied Kandy SC saying that the ruling to change the league format was put down to falling in line with the tournaments of the ‘best rugby-playing nations’.

But Kandy SC at the time told Sri Lanka Rugby in no uncertain terms that it will have none of it, meaning they will continue to withstand the jealousy of Colombo’s clubs, their political gangs and sadistic supporters. Fernando is a former CR and FC player, sworn Kandy SC rival, and according to independent analysts the motive for a ‘knock-out’ match after the league could be put down to mere wishful thinking.

Kandy SC, without whose presence domestic rugby was without its glamour, had all the clout and might to dictate to Sri Lanka Rugby and even pull-out of the subsequent Clifford Cup knock-out tournament over venue disputes.

Now irrespective of what their adoring followers and supporters think, Kandy SC has bowed down and caved in to the dictates of the new elites calling the shots at Sri Lanka Rugby who like many other sports association officials survive of political patronage.

According to insiders at Kandy SC, the club will field its team against table toppers CR and FC who should have been declared League champs like Kandy SC in the past 20 or more years, in the so-called “grand final” on February 21 at Longden Place in Colombo.