There is growing optimism that the Bradby Shield rugby match between Royal College and Trinity could be played in the month of December with the suspended schools League touted to recommence in November.
The reasons for its delay or cancellation have been well documented and obvious as the country gets back to normal from the coronavirus pandemic.
This year’s Bradby was to be the 76th game and one of the most looked forward to rugby games in the country. The first historic match between these schools was played on July 31, 1920 and made a yearly encounter with Trinity College winning for the first 21 years until the Royalists recorded their first victory in 1941.
In 1945, the principal of Royal College, E.L. Bradby put forward the idea of playing an annual two-match series to which the principal of Trinity College, C. E. Simithraaratchy readily agreed. To ensure the success of the series, EL Bradby offered a Shield which was to be kept for a period of one year by the winner of the series.
The series has been played annually and uninterrupted ever since with the Shield, designed and made by Kandyan silversmiths. It is a wooden disk decorated with intricate traditional Kandyan silver works.
So far, Trinity leads the series with more wins. Only one encounter was played between the schools in 1971 due to security reasons. The Shield was presented to Royal College based on the result of the first leg at an assembly by the then principal of Trinity College E.L. Fernando.
This writer goes back to the game played in 1970, 50 years ago when Trinity came from behind to take the Bradby shield. In that year the first leg was played at Longden place on a Thursday as Trinity defeated Royal by 19-3. In this game Royal were completely outplayed in every aspect of the game and could do nothing against Trinity’s better technique and tactics.
The famous Trinity fly half Irwin Howie who is now residing in Australia cut the Royal defense with his half breaks dummies and slicing runs that gave the threes enough room to manoeuvre and fashion tries.
Then came the second leg in Kandy on the 17th day of July. According to the fixture card the game as to be played at Peradeniya Campus ground and there was a last minute change with the venue shifted to Nittawela as there was a news of a threat by anti-social elements to disturb the game if it was played at Peradeniya.
So, the change was done and the Kandy school was not happy with the change as Trinity have never won against Royal at Nittawela – not even with the best of sides. At that time the Bogambara ground was under re-development.
In this famous second leg game, there was a sea of heads at Nittawela. The crowd was over fifteen thousand and one of the largest seen at that time with plenty of bands and fanfare.
‘Kadalaya’ from Royal and ‘Kotal’ and ‘Perumal’ from Trinity were dancing and cheering before the game. The famous commemorator Bob Harvie took his seat just with ten minutes to go before the game and a film unit was at Nittawela for the first time. This marked the first time a rugby game was filmed in the country.
Both sides were seen warming up and the referee was Ashey Cader. The game kicked off with Trinity on the entrance end and Royal on the Nittawela temple side. Royal took the kick off as F.R. Sourjah did the honours and the ball went just passing the ten yard line.
The ball was held by Lalith Ramanayake and Royals flankers Javid Yusuf and Tima Lazarus were there and the forwards forced a scrum. Royal won the ball through Dushy Perera and the ball was held in the third row but Trinity’s Ralph Roberts kicked the ball into touch. And for about seven minutes the ball was with the forwards. Royal won both scrums and lineouts through Dushy Perera, Maiya Gunasekara and Fred Pereira.
They were faster in the loose as well. A scrum was forced in the Trinity ten and Dushy Perera won the ball. Scrum half Ajith Pasqual gave it to Jagath Fernando and from him a quick pass to Senaka Abeyrane who gave it to winger S. Samarage and the full back Sourjah made the overlap and scored left of the upright. He took the kick, and it went astray. Royal 3 – Trinity nil.
Then came a penalty just in front of the post as Trinitian Anura Madawela handled the ball from an off-side position. Sourjah kicked right to give Royal a 6-0 lead in the 15th minute.
At this time the Trinitians were losing all the scrums and lineouts while the Royalists were most of the time in the Trinity half. Again a penalty for Royal from 40 yards out was a difficult one for Sourjah. But yes he put it over to give his side a 9-0 lead and Royal were in complete control of the game.
Then in the 20th minute , Royal faced some sparkling tackles from skipper Palitha “Sam” Samarasekera. It was especially for Jagath Fernando and when the whistle was blown for half time Royal led by 9-0.
When the second half started, Nihal Marambe took the kick and it went to winger Fred Amarasinghe who kicked it to touch leading to a line-out.
In this too Royal won the ball through Maiya Gunasekara who gave it to scrum half Pasqual who in turn gave it back to Fred Pereira who charged down on the blind side for another try to give Royal a clear 12 points to nil lead. With one more goal Royal could have taken the Shield to Colombo and there was some 20 minutes to go to the end.
At this moment players like Samarasekera, Anura Madawela, Tikiri Marambe and Ralph Roberts were giving their best possible support. Samarasekera was seen changing places with Irwin Howie, mainly to unleash a tackle on Jagath Fernando with 14 minutes of play left. Again Jagath Fernando came with the ball and Samarasekera gave him a tackle to remember and from this a scrum was formed.
Royal again won the ball and it was kicked to Trinity fly half Irwin Howie and the ball was sent to the threes with Anura Madawela anticipating. He took the ball to the Royal 25 and a player was blown off side and Trinity had a penalty from about 22 yards. Nihal Marambe came in to take the kick at goal but there was a change of mind and Trinity took a short tap.
Tikiri Marambe sent the ball to Howie who gave it to Roy Balasuirya with only 12 minutes of play left.
At this moment Royal were losing the ball at every move. Then came a penalty for Trinity when Royal flanker Javid Yusuf made a mistake. Trinity had a 35 yard penalty and Nihal Marambe made no mistake as Trinity had three points to Royal’s 12.
A few minutes later scrumhalf Tikiri Marambe made a break and gave the ball to Howie who sent out a reverse pass to Samarasekera. He did everything possible and gave it to Jayantha “Kalu” Weerasinghe who put the final touches by diving over by the corner flag. Nihal Marambe tried his best but failed to put over the conversion.
But with only three minutes remaining the scores read 12-11 in favour of Royal. Samarasekera took the ball and sent a pass to Howie who did everything possible and slipped out a reverse pass to Samarasekera who took the ball into the Royal territory and passed it to winger ‘Kalu’ Weerasinghe to do the needful. He had an open field as the Royal defence targetted Sam and Irwin.
‘Kalu’ did the needful and Nihal Marambe added the extra points to give Trinity a victory to be remembered for ever – Trinity 16, Royal 12.
Sadly today there is less rugby played in this pattern with kicking playing a part. In those days too there was kicking but the kicks were not aimless and taken with a purpose.
The Trinity players who made that unforgettable win happen were Y.S.Ping, Cuda Wadugodaitiya, M. de Silva, Lalith Ramanayake, Niroshan de Silva, Anura Madawela, R. Panaboke, Ralph Roberts, Tikiri Marambe, Irwin Howie, Rohan Kulatunge, Palitha “Sam” Samarasekera (Captain), Roy Balasuriya, Jayantha “Kalu” Weerasinghe and Nihal Marambe.
Royal had players Janek Ranatunge, Dushy Perera, C. Weerasinghe, Maiya Gunasekara, Fred Pereira, Javid Yusuf, Tima Lazarus, Dimitri Gunasekara, Ajith Pasqual, Jagath Fernando, D.S. Wickremasinghe, Senaka Abeyratne, Fred Amarasinghe, S.Samarage and F.R. Sourjah.