By Callistus Davy
When William Webb Ellis of Rugby College in England is said to have disregarded the rules of football by picking up the ball and running with it – his opponents desperately trying to stop him, little did anyone realize that his invention would become the passion of millions of teenagers who might otherwise have found life boring.
In Sri Lanka, many schoolboys would have found life a big bore if not for rugby. But on a sour and disappointing note, passion has given way to the sadistic attitudes of a few players who are tarnishing the name of the sport.
On a refreshing note, the 2025 inter-school rugby season, in its first week, showed promise that rugby will reach more players and attract new followers. This signals the entry of a New Guard, poised to replace the old.
Trophies and tournaments aside, which have too often been a major cause of crowd violence, assaults on match officials, and the exploitation of players to satisfy the whims and fancies of highly paid coaches and certain sadistic old boys, it cannot be denied that the New Guard is here to stay.
That New Guard appears to be represented by the teams of DS Senanayake College, Wesley College, Vidyartha College, and Ananda College, while Zahira College, which took to rugby in the 1920s, now seems to be the phoenix rising from the ashes.
From the looks of it, these five schools have demonstrated to two traditionally elite institutions, St. Peter’s College and St. Joseph’s College what true discipline means, as both schools took the field without their designated playmakers for reasons best known to them.
Having taken their status, tradition, image, and the flow of big corporate funding for granted, the Peterites and the Joes—with certain unwanted influences in their teams have been nudged by the New Guard to realize that discipline is fundamental to success.
No longer can schools with rich, illustrious histories and traditions call the shots and look down on the rest while hiding their own skeletons, especially in an age when a million eyes are watching what happens behind closed doors, and whistleblowers are determined to expose hypocrisy and clean up the mess.
It is also to be hoped that the unethical practice of player poaching from lesser-known schools (under the guise of scholarships) by some of Colombo’s elite schools will soon become a thing of the past, as more schools and their players come to understand what it truly means to wear the jersey of the school that first gave them a desk and chair when their anxious parents needed it most.
