A benchmark in rugby coaching and a trophy for Petes

By A Special Sports Correspondent

St. Peter’s College made amends for the restricted season in 2022 by bagging the 2023 Dialog-sponsored Inter-school Under 19 Fifteen-a-side League Rugby Tournament under the captaincy of Ashain Madugasge and the coaching of Sanath Martis. The Peterites, before this present winning spree, bagged the league tournament way back in 2010 under skipper Keith Gurusinghe. That year too, the Peterites were coached by Martis.

Last year the school from Bambalapitiya was penalised for fielding an ineligible player, but all that was sent into oblivion when they came back fighting and with a purpose this season to bag the all-important Dialog sponsored league plum with a smashing 28-17 win over Isipatana in a deciding game which was played at their own den on August 19 (Saturday). The game was deciding for St. Peter’s and not for Isipatana because Royal was the second-best side carrying both potential and accumulated points to finish as runners-up even before they kicked off their final game against St. Anthony’s. This game, played in Kandy, eventually went in favour of the boys from Reid Avenue. Isipatana finished third followed by St. Anthony’s Katugastota, which can take a bow for securing a top four finish this season.

The Peterites never created that hype to be title contenders despite an early season shocker in their maiden game for 2023 where they made Royal eat humble pie. Schools like Royal, Trinity and Isipatana saw their fixtures being lined up in such a manner that they were more in the limelight than St. Peter’s. The manner in which Royal and Trinity got mileage for their Bradby Shield encounter and the way in which the media hounded these two schools put the rest of the teams in the competition in a position of being less noticed. Isipatana could be an exception to this thinking, but the crowds that were present at Pallakele for the first leg of the Bradby Shield and for the return leg at Royal Sports Complex this year can dwarf the spectator presence at other important matches this season.

Veteran coach Sanath Martis is a person who is obsessed with result-oriented coaching and helped St. Peter’s strike gold this season. (Pix by Kamal Wanniarachchi)

But the Peterites pegged on during the season securing wins over Dharmaraja (34-7), Trinity (22-10), Zahira (56-7), Science (29-0), Vidyartha (66-10) before smashing the daylights out of St. Anthony’s (39-0) in the first Super Round fixture and later downing Isipatana. Apart from Martis being present on the field in his ‘ship captain’ like style mention must be made of assistant coaches Rajiv Perera and Banuka Nanayakkara for their contributions to the side. Skipper Madugasge will be remembered for leading this champion side which had in their ranks solid players in the likes of Vindya de Mel, Kushan Tharindu, Sudesh Jayawickreme, Dineth Ranasinghe and Yumeth Shihara to name a few.

Royal playing under lock forward Randul Senanayake did well to finish second in the points table. They were coached this season by Dushanth Lewke. Isipatana might not like the manner in which they finished the season because this was a side to watch this year with some incredible players in their ranks in the likes of skipper Nawin Kanishka, Shehandu de Costa, Shahid Zumri, Kalindu Silva, Heshan Randimal, T. Ranaweera, Chamindu Chirath and playmaker Rinesh Silva, who finished the season as the highest points scorer (89).

If one considers the coaches employed this season Martis once again underscored that little valued saying ‘old is gold’. This is an era where the young coaches in rugby are considered ‘laptop coaches’ and are hunting for strategies and information on the internet 24×7. If one takes coaches like Nawaz (S. Thomas’), Fazil Marija (Trinity), Srinath Sooriyabandara (St. Anthony’s ), Lewke and Saliya Kumara (Isipatana) they have played this game at a much higher level than Martis and have age and technology on their side. But this veteran coach marshaled his team in a manner that they maintained consistency and made it to a podium finish. This coaching maestro showed the younger rugby coaches that he still has it in him to see a side through a season and take his chargers to safe port when the season concludes.

This writer remembers the character ‘the old fisherman’ in Ernest Hemingway’s Nobel Prize-winning book ‘the old man and the sea’-first published in 1952 in England. The old man in that book makes one last voyage into the sea and makes a prized catch, but is defeated by the sharks out in the waters. The old man is obsessed with the word ‘luck’ and sees luck eluding him as the curtains come down on his career as a fisherman. Maybe Martis has a few more years to engage in coaching in a manner that people and players around him feel his presence. He can still make the opposite teams shake from their foundations with the way he thinks, coaches and produces results. He could still be the person out there who can set the benchmark for coaches who have made coaching their profession. He will bid adieu one day which is not far away in the future. And when he does he will make people ask “what will life be for Martis when he moves away from the oval-shaped ball, the green grassy fields and children who play rugby union”. This writer asks this question instead, ‘what would rugby coaching in Sri Lanka be without Martis’?