The Bradby Shield Encounter - commonly known as "The Bradby" - is the blue ribbon of Sri Lanka's school rugby union season. It is played annually between traditional rivals Royal College, Colombo, and Trinity College, Kandy. The encounter consists of two legs, one being played in the Royal College stadium in Colombo, and the other in Bogambara stadium, Kandy. The winner is decided on the aggregate of the scores from these two matches, usually played a few weeks apart. The Bradby is generally played in late August or early September and is the most watched rugby match in the country, drawing more spectators than either inter-club or international fixtures.It is also an important social event of the sri lanka's elite class.


S. Thomas' led by Number 8 Rohitha Rajapakse started off their 2008 Singer inter-school rugby league season campaign in the way they were looking forward with a morale boosting 14 points to 10 win over St Anthony's Katugastota in their first match played at Mt Lavinia yesterday having held on to a slender 7-5 lead at half time.

The closely contested game saw the Thomians make up their score through two goals one each in the two sessions of play while the Antonians made up their score from two tries also in the same pattern. It was the Thomians who dominated the first half and the Antonians in the second half. But the Antonians messed up some of the scoring opportunities that came their way in this session and had to blame themselves of throwing away their chances of winning the game.

This match was played for the Rev. Fr. Angelo Rossati trophy which the Thomians regained it after a lapse of three years. In fact it was the Antonians who drew first blood in the 8th minute when Number 8 Imad Reyal went through for a superb push over try. But a few minutes later the Thomians struck back through a try from prop forward Janik Jayasuriya with winger Hehsan Gunaratne adding the extra points to give them the lead. The two sides changed over with no more scoring being done in this half.

The Thomians enjoying their home ground support began attacking and succeeded in penetrating their opponents’ backyard. Then the Thomians spearheaded by skipper and Number 8 Rohitha Rajapakse who took the opportunity of going over for a try following a series of line outs and five metre area. Heshan Gunaratne made no mistake of the conversion this time too.

From here onwards the Antonians began making sporadic moves but they were unlucky when one of the tries scored under the posts was disallowed by referee Pradeep Fernando. But they made amends a few minutes later when centre Amila Weligampola went over for another unconverted try. The grassing of the conversions proved costly for the Antonians unlike for the Thomians which turned out to be match winning ones at the end.

Yesterday it was observed that a parent of a player behaving in an unruly manner accusing the referee on poor judgments. However it would be advisable if incidents of this nature are nipped in the bud as these may lead up incidents of the nature of where a referee was manhandled at a schools match during the last season.


Three schoolboys in Sri Lanka ‘Sevens’ rugby pool

Three outstanding schoolboy ruggerites have been included in the Sri Lanka Rugby Sevens pool in preparation for the Carlton International Rugby Sevens which will be worked off at the Sugathadasa Stadium on November 28 and 29, 2009.

Dharmaraja’s Darshana Etipola and Kingswood’s Roshan Weeraratne both of whom excelled in the Youth Rugby Asiad in Hong Kong and Isipathana winger Vishwamithra Jayasinghe who missed the Youth Rugby Asiad due to injury have bene included in the pool along with four other new players - Nuwan Chamara and Dinusha Chathuranga (CR and FC) and Kandy SC’s Buddhika Thalagampola and Sameera Silva.


Isipathana College retained the Cup Championship while Dharmaraja College the Plate Championship and Ananda College the Bowl Championship at the Schools Segment of the Singer SriLankan Airlines Rugby Sevens organised by Kandy Sports Club and worked off at the Nittawela Rugby Stadium in Kandy yesterday.

In the Cup Championship finals Isipathana Maha Vidyalaya beat Kingswood College by 28 points (4 goals) to 19 (2 goals, 1 try) after leading 14-12 at the breather. Isipathana opened scoring through Vishwajith Jayasinghe which was goalled by Prasad Devinda.

Two minutes later another try by Srinath Suriyabandara and goalled by Prasad Devinda put the Pathans in a commanding position at this stage leading 14-0. But the Kingswoodians fought back when Harsha Ranaweera broke off and sprinted away to score under the post and Roshan Weeraratne added the extra points to reduce the lead to 7-14.

Just before lemons Gayan Ratnage kicked ahead and collected the ball to score far left. This try went unconverted.

With the Pathans leading 14-12 the teams changed ends and the Kingswoodians took over the lead for the first time through a fine try by Rajitha Sansoni and Roshan Weeraratne added the extra points.

Kingswood 19-14. But Isipathana made a fine come back and scored two more tries by Srinath Suriyabandara and Skipper Dinusha Chathuranga which were goalled by Prasad Devinda which gave Isipathana victory and the Cup for the second year in succession.

In the schools Cup semi final Isipathana beat St. Peter’s by 25 points (5 tries) to 20 (1 goal, 2 tries, 1 penalty) after leading 10-7 at half time. At the end of full time the scores stood deadlocked at 20 - all Isipathana scored the winning try during extra time.

Isipathana scored tries through Dinusha Chathruanga (2), Srinath Suriyabandara (2) and Wishwajith Jayasinghe. For St. Peter’s Gerald Canute (1), Pooranka Delpachitra (1) and Harsha Weerakoddy (1) scored tries and the last named goalled one try and converted the penalty.

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