Pompous rugby officials are heading for more disaster in the aftermath of the Sevens team cut down to pieces at last week’s Asian meet while one club Havelocks has cried foul with claims they were cheated of winning the last Premier domestic title and Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) not willing to take wholesale blame for the muck ups.
With a history of over 100 years Havelock Sports Club have accused the parent body of the sport of cheating on them and awarding the coveted trophy to Kandy SC six months ago while at the same time practicing a thing called hypocrisy by disregarding the traditional format of the game for the Sevens show.
The accusation was made by none other than the club’s president Thusitha Peiris as he heralded the start of his team’s regrouping with a new jersey for the new season that commenced on Friday.
Known as the club of the common man for its popular player-appeal to vast crowds that thronged to witness their matches against the elite teams in the 1980s, Havelocks like the rest of the teams in the fray could not come out for their remaining two matches as the 2022 League came to a grinding halt.
Havelocks were placed second in the table and were slated to host Kandy SC in a return home match that the players and coaching staff were convinced of winning after losing to the same opposition in an away first round match.
“We were robbed of the championship. It was purposely done,” declared Peiris as his club showcased their new commercial partners and a new jersey.
“I have to apologise to our sponsors and our team, especially my players who went flat out and gave 150 per cent on the field and came back with nothing. We came close to winning the Cup and had one hand on the Cup.”
For Havelocks it was like the wall crashing down on them when Sri Lanka Rugby brought down the curtain citing political protests in the country that many followers saw as a lame excuse while all other field sports in the country continued.
The growing fear among Havelocks and other clubs in the country is that, with no Provisions in the tournament clauses to award the league title to a team should the championship be aborted, nothing is expected to change with complaints and protests even at Ministry level falling on deaf ears.
Claiming that Havelocks is the nursery of rugby in the country where players are groomed and not robbed from rivals clubs, Peiris slammed SLR for doing little or nothing to promote the traditional game in the country while focusing on the shortened Sevens format.
“We put in every effort to keep this game alive and the saddest part is what is there for the 15-a-side players to look forward to. Sri Lanka Rugby doesn’t have any plan on that and their only focus is on Sevens.
“Why are we playing three or four months of 15-a-side rugby in the country if we don’t have a future at Asian level? And they (SLR) talk about a high performance centre worth 150 million,” lashed out Peiris who was a onetime secretary of SLR.
Led by a controversial president in Rizly Illyas, SLR boasted of more successes in their boardrooms than on the field of play striking commercial deals with sponsors and posing for media photographs only for the Sevens team to return in disgrace from the Asian circuit last week.