The Bradby Shield

In the schools’ sporting calendar there are many activities there we look forward to. In the month of March it’s the Royal/Thomian big match spread over three days and in rugby in the months of May/June it’s the Bradby shield.

Whilst the Big match is 132 years old, the Bradby is quite young by comparison with the 68th battle scheduled for this weekend. The schools’ proudly proclaim that even World War I and II could not halt these matches and that the encounter is older than the Ashes series between Australia and England. I am sure that there will be a whole host of people screaming about other sports and other schools, but take a step back and you will realise that these two are the biggest.

Whilst Trinity have lost a solitary game this season to SPC, the Royalists are unbeaten having got the better of SPC last week. It is obviously a high pressure game and the hype and excitement is terrific leading into this game. There is already a mad scramble for tickets and as I write there does not appear to be any left with various camps accusing the other of bad management in terms of ticket allocations.

Distractions aside, Colombo will obviously come to a standstill this Saturday afternoon as the movers and shakers of Colombo’s elite will be there. The Colombo lasses will be out in all their glory as they will want to prove a point or two to the Kandy lamissi. Leading up to the games, the weather has been quite soggy and with murky skies and thus an early start will do all of us a world of good. It would be great if the weather gods are kind once more as was the case last weekend. Relying on the predictions of the Met department will be a hazard and divine intervention would be a better route to explore.

On the rugby front RC proved that they could contain play with the forwards for long periods of time and thus starve the opposition of possession leading to frustration. I still believe that the Royal three quarters are quite suspect in defence and on a number of occasions the opposition has demonstrated this deficiency. Further the team is fairly dependant on a couple of three quarters to deliver the goods.  It would be interesting to see whether they will continue to contain play with the forwards as the Trinitian forwards can hold their own in this aspect. Royal’s confidence must be shy high after the win against SPC whilst Trinity will be more circumspect in their approach.  The Trinity three quarters have looked good this season.  The last time that Trinity met Royal in Colombo, they simply galloped to victory and I wonder if that will play on the minds of Royal. The Trinity performance so far has not been spectacular and they had their fair share of scares before eventually pulling through as evidenced once again last week against Kingswood.

Unfortunately on the same day, SPC will meet Pathana in a crunch game. It’s a pity that these games could not be scheduled for different dates as the rugby doting public would have loved to watch both games. SPC were shell shocked after their loss last week and they would need to put that down to experience and move on. If the Petes continue to play as they did against SACK, the Joes and Science, they will come a cropper.

Pathana have been playing some cracking rugby in the past few weeks and last week was no exception. Their all round game appears to be much better and if they can curtail their sudden rushes of blood to attempt the impossible, but keep play nice and simple, I see no reason for them not to emerge victorious. They have so far conceded only 95 points in all of the games played, possibly indicating a tight defence. However one must not write off SPC based on their solitary loss last weekend. On their day, with adequate possession, they have the ability to score big through their three quarters and thereby throwing the opposition into disarray.  The second week of the club season will also be underway and I do not expect large crowds at any of the games, as they are bound to be reasonably one sided, unlike the school games. There will be some good international rugby on the idiot box and we will have the opportunity to watch these games live.  NZ are looking awesome and are bound to get the better of Ireland once again, Australia will have to play better if they are to stave off the challenge of the Welsh, although they won the first test last week. SA will play England again this week and this should be closely contested going by last week’ s result, whilst Argentina will take on the French.  Thus we are absolutely spoilt for choice this weekend and with the fourth ODI as well slated for Saturday, our families are not going to love us this weekend unless they are equally into sports. Have a sporting weekend.

(The writer can be contacted via [email protected].)