Rugby offers valuable lessons on empathy

By A Special Sports Correspondent

Rugby union is a sport that has blended well with the Sri Lankan sports community for over 145 years. From the days when the first international rugby match was played in a 1907 (Between Ceylon and the visiting All Blacks) the game has spread its tentacles; thanks to the untiring efforts of many dedicated rugby administrators.

When that first rugby international was played in Colombo, the All Blacks were reprimanded for playing against a nation which wasn’t affiliated with the world rugby governing body. That was when Ceylon knew that they had to enter the larger rugby world. For that purpose the Ceylon Rugby Football Union was formed in 1908.

Whenever Sri Lanka has entertained thoughts of engaging the world its performances have been great. From the time the British represented us in sport to the times when rugby’s elite from Colombo did the honours in wearing the national jersey, Sri Lanka’s rugby was taken seriously by the world rugby fraternity. But this is not the case in present times where Sri Lanka is fighting hard to earn a promotion to the Asia Rugby Championship.

Back during the good times of rugby in Sri Lanka the Annual General Meeting of Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) was held in an atmosphere of camaraderie. There was no such campaigning for votes and the next man in line for the presidency was pushed up automatically to head this sports body, governing the interest of rugby in Sri Lanka. That changed in later years and the ‘games’ played to become president of SLR became ugly as political matters are discussed and deals are struck in the island’s election scene.

Rugby too spread laterally and the game was embraced by parties, clubs and schools which couldn’t maintain the glorified standards of the sport played with the oval shaped ball. One of the unwritten laws of the game that’s often broken is players and officials being unable to shake hands and make up after a dispute.

Rugby matches are played in hostile atmospheres. The win at any cost rule is promoted akin to how ambition is embedded in the minds of A’ Level students, who strive to enter university. We’ve seen this hostility being present in school matches and that’s not a place where we should see this kind of behavior spreading its roots. For the record, Kandy has been a hotspot for rugby violence in the schools scene during the last couple years. This elbows out attitude can then be seen continuing to club rugby as well. During the past two seasons Kandy SC pulled out of the knockout tournament citing differences in the choice of venue by SLR for that stage of the domestic tournament.

Strangely rugby is introduced to schoolchildren at a young stage, but one wonders whether sportsmanship is also embedded into them. Most schools start rugby for kids at age 10 or below that. Children are naturally friendly and like to mingle with the opposing team members. But we’ve seen coaches who are under pressure channeling some that negative energies to their chargers; often the boys in one team told to be unfriendly to the other team well before the game starts. We saw this kind of behavior out in the open before the year 2022 schools’ knockout final began.

Kids must be taught to take up victory and defeat in the same spirit. Rugby is evenly spread these days in terms of setting up fixtures for teams. There were times in the good old days when lesser known schools could only dream of having a fixture against teams like Royal, Trinity, St. Thomas’ and Isipatana. Now these popular rugby playing schools are forced to accommodate games against less popular schools in their fixture list; largely to be entitled to the label ‘Division 1’ rugby playing school. This ‘label’ is given to schools by the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association; a sports organization which is run by a bunch of schoolmasters who don’t really know the length and breadth of a rugby field.

Despite all that, school rugby is cherished for all its ‘colors’ and different cultures. School rugby is a ‘stage’ where great lessons in empathy are taught. We saw last season, how a referee officiating in a school game was quick enough to hold on to a player, who was about to collapse. This incident took place when the game was to be restarted with a scrum. It was a great lesson on empathy because the players of both teams were focused on the scrum that was going to take place and if not for the referee that player would have had a nasty fall.

SLR must also conduct programmes for schools and be involved in the inter-school rugby scene. People with a rugby background and knowledge of the game must be roped into serve the game at school level. There was a time when younger school players emulated their older ‘big brothers’ who played rugby at school. Now that emulating ‘thing’ is out of fashion; because every individual wants to be the best version of himself and there are enough tools around to achieve that goal. But still, rugby’s past heroes can have an influence on the players, referees, coaches and administrators. Rugby, overall, has potential to influence a community and remind everyone that ‘no one is bigger than the game’.