Hooliganism mucks rugby cradle

 Trinity College took its rightful place as the new champions of schools rugby that their players richly deserved

By Callistus Davy

Schools rugby in the country was subjected to yet another disgraceful level this time at the culmination of the 2025 season as hooligan spectators flung chairs and smashed some of them in the direction of rival spectators.

It marked a syndrome of uncontrolled madness just as Trinity College was to ascend the throne as the new kings of schools rugby at their last match against outsiders St. Peter’s College who pulled out a win from a hat shocking rival supporters after everything else was lost to them at the Pallekele Stadium in Kandy on Sunday evening.

But like everything else the hooliganism in Kandy is destined to be swept under the carpet like it happens in Colombo and the caretakers of the cradle of the sport known as the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association (SLSRFA) will treat the rowdysim as one more forgotten incident and pompously launch a new season with supermodels on the catwalk next year.

The bottom line will be that schools rugby, which is dwindling in values and snowballing with investments in millions second only to the Sri Lanka cricket team, will continue to be viewed as the most violent-prone spectator sport in the country as long as no one knows how much of violence in too much of violence.

For nearly 30 years schools rugby in the country has provided a breeding ground for anti-social elements with the 2024 season marked as the year a referee was criminally brutalized on the ground after a match and the 2025 incident in Kandy taking its place as one more of the horrors associated with schools rugby.

Not a singlew school throughout a 30-year period that hosted a match that has been subjected to violence has been taken to task drastically by the SLSRFA which is run by school masters and school heads while their commercial partners have also turned a blind eye after pumping in the big bucks.

The biggest fear is that with schools rugby now turned into an industry and schoolboy players falling into the hands of sadistic elements or becoming commercial pawns and coaches paid heavily to produce nothing short of a win, last Sunday’s incident involving another breed of stakeholders in the stands will not be the last with the powers that be yet to take responsibility to make schools rugby a family occasion.