Lost cup or poisoned chalice:

By: Callistus Davy

WHAT MADE THE PETERITES PLAY LIKE ANGRY PUPS IN THEIR SIGN-OFF MATCH?

Commercial stakes, pride, egoism and influence could be conflicting with discipline at schools rugby in general which has now grown to the extent that players have become sought after celebrities having to cater to the whims and fancies of the demanding kind and the syndrome may even be taking its toll.

The demands have reached a level that one school, St. Peter’s College, could not live up to a situation that it even pulled out its team from the 2025 Knockout tournament after some of its players reportedly breached the disciplinary code at a boot camp outside the city. Were they victims of their own progress.

They will not be the last. The Peterites were one of two glamour schools with an illustrious record in the door-die Knockout segment of schools rugby, unlike the long League where teams could recover after set-backs, with Isipathana College being the other competitor.

The Peterites had a record second only to Isipathana in the Knock-outs that had a television following while the League matches at the time had very little or no coverage by the electronic media unlike today. 

Did the school’s think-tanks at St. Peter’s College then decide to pull-out of the Knockouts that they saw as a Poisoned Chalice, not worth playing for this time, and did that affect the moral of the entire team when a prudent decision would have been to continue to play in the Knock-outs by replacing anyone who misbehaved or breached discipline.

The answer will blow in the wind and given the way the Peterites, the defending champions, played in their sign-off League match against the new champions Trinity College, it appeared their clinical best came at the last when the players were linedup facing a firing squad which they gloriously averted giving it their all, like angry pups surrounded by lions.

Neutral observers were of the opinion that the Peterites had very little to play for at the start of the League when experts had already predicted the ultimate winner. But why then did the Peterites have to make the most stunning comeback when very few of their supporters gave them a dog’s chance to signoff on a winning note against, of all teams, Trinity College that waited patiently to grab the championship after 38 years.

Throughout history many a team had gone down with dignity and honour, and the Peterites deserved their goose, snatched from the lion’s mouth. Nothing could have explained it better when beleaguered captain Vishenka Silva bowed out a changed leader to his team and the spirited son of a mother in the stands that he bear-hugged after the match, like the Biblical return of the prodigal. At that stage it left many wonder, who was the happier of the two teams.

While memories of the 2025 season may last a generation, more questions will beg for answers as the dust settles. For how long more can the players of competing teams be dishonoured by followers who throng venues to support their teams only to end up behaving like hooligans paying scant respect to their heroes who kill themselves preparing to come out as finished products at a match. After-match rioting is the worst tribute they could pay their teams who give them their money’s worth like all teams do. Sadism now lies in the hands of rugby’s so-called caretakers and commercial godfathers to stop playing roulette and start playing guardian angels.

It is the players who are the best ambassadors for their schools, not the critics, pundits and the social elite in the stands or air conditioned pavilions.