By Nimal Luxshman

Saturday afternoon drew a mammoth crowd to the St Peter’s College grounds, Bambalapitiya, to witness the battle between St. Peter’s College (SPC) popularly known as the ‘Bamba Brigade’ and Isipatana College (IC), tagged the ‘Green Machine’. The match was played to decide the winners of the inter schools’ rugby league champions for 2023 season. This crowd may have been the biggest ever seen at a rugby encounter played this season by two schools.

It did not take more than five minutes for the scoreboard to start ticking, when Yuneth Shihara, the SPC centre, scoring the first try of the match on the right flank and converting it himself to give SPC a 7-0 lead. Soon afterwards, Ishanka Abeykoon, who was in charge of the whistle, warned Chamindu Chirath, the Isipatana centre, for unfair play and sent the latter to the ‘SinBin’.

Around two minutes later the SPC hooker Wishmika was seen lifting Rinesh Silva of IC above his head and dashing him on the ground. When the entire crowd thought it should have ended up in a ‘Red Card’ for dangerous play, Irshad Carder, the Television Match Official (TMO) thought otherwise and decided on a Yellow Card on Wishmika and a penalty for IC. Some spectators felt that the Referee himself could have taken the decision as it happened near him mid field. The only question would have been to decide on the colour of the card, whether yellow or red.

IC reduced the lead to 7-3 when Rinesh Silva converted a penalty for them when a SPC player was spotted off-side.

Place kickers of both teams kicked astray a penalty each within the next couple of minutes, but the kick attempted by the SPC player was the more difficult one from 45 meters out.

Halfway during the first half a line out won by the SPC ended near the IC territory, just five meters out. Though IC may have expected their opponents to engage in a ‘rolling maul’, they were surprised when the ball was taken from the front and two SPC players running along the touch line for SPC No: 8 to score on the left flank. The Assistant Referee, though he may not have seen planting the ball, informed the Referee it was a try. Referee then consulted the TMO to ascertain whether the ball had been grounded properly or not and the latter confirmed it was in order. With this unconverted try, SPC increased their lead to 12-3.

Once again IC were penalised when Rinesh Silva was spotted holding on to the ball. The penalty was converted and the lead of SPC increased again to 15-3.

The best try of the game was seen just before half time when Rinesh Silva of IC collected a backhand pass by Shaahid Zumri and made a jinking run, past a host of baffled defenders, to score by the right goalpost. He converted it himself to relieve pressure on his team by reducing the lead to 15-10 at the “lemons”.

The SPC lead increased once again when a misdirected goal line drop-out by the IC skipper Naveen Kanishka ended up in the hands of SPC players who scored far right. The Referee once again sought the assistance of the TMO to check whether the ball had been grounded properly by SPC’s Dineth Ranasinghe. With that try being confirmed and the conversion going astray, SPC led 20-10.

The play was held up for a couple of minutes soon afterward when the match officials decided that the crowd was too close to the touchline on the opposite side of the main pavilion.

When play resumed SPC’s Ranasinghe was sent to the ‘Sin Bin’ for a deliberate knock on. IC opted to kick to touch and during the ensuing line out won the ball. The IC forwards, after several ‘Pick and go’ attempts, managed to score with Damhiru Rajapakse going over the line. Rinesh Silva converted it to reduce the score to 20-17 for his team to come back to the game, with 10 minutes of play still remaining.

However, SPC who excelled in everything they did, especially in rucking and support play during the match, increased their lead to 25-17again,when Kushal Tharindu scored a try, which went unconverted. The Bamba Brigade did not try any fancy stuff but stuck to basic conventional rugby, in comparison to the Green Machine who decided to run with the ball even within their own territory, quite dangerously.

With 10 minutes play remaining IC did the mistake of not clearing the ball from their own territory and ended up giving away another simple penalty to the opponents, who once again stretched their lead to 28-17 when Kushan Tharindu converted it.

Overall, the day belonged to the ‘Bamba Brigade’ who had been put through their paces by their head coach Sanath Martis, reputed to be a shrewd tactician in school rugby. During the second half his instructions may have been to maintain the lead by kicking deep into the opponent’s territory. His charges were seen executing his plan extremely well and gaining territory by kicking the ball from their own 50 meters to the opponents’ 22 meters. They were successful on three occasions and won lineouts in the IC territory. They dictated terms to the opponents and had absolute dominance of the game. The way they played could be rated flawless, when compared with the opponents who kicked aimlessly at inappropriate moments, in addition to dishing out erratic passes on several occasions.

The ‘Bamba Brigade’ thereby won the league championship after 13 years, remaining unbeaten throughout the season. They began with a win against Royal in their first outing of the season and put the icing on the cake by dismantling the Green Machine on their home soil in their last game yesterday.

A few comments seem necessary regarding the poor crowd handling by the organizers of SPC who hosted this game. Most of the spectators who had bought their tickets in advance found it extremely difficult to gain entrance to the ground as there was only one queue for ticket holders as well as those who did not possess tickets. Once a section of the crowd who had tickets had barged in causing a stampede. In a crunch game like this, the organisers should have had a separate queue for those who had purchased tickets. Large crowds unable to get into the ground caused huge traffic congestion near the Wellawatte Canal end of the Duplication Road. Thanks to the Police who ordered the gates to be opened a second stampede was avoided and the free flow of traffic ensured, bringing much relief to those commuting in buses, who had been thoroughly inconvenienced by the delays in traffic movement.