I Went To A Fight And A Rugby Match Broke Out!
By Emil
van der Poorten -August
19, 2012
Emil van der Poorten
Let
me open with an apology for borrowing, with some modification, the very famous
Rodney Dangerfield quote that reads, “I went to a fight the other night, and a
hockey game broke out” as an epitomizing violence that might be appropriate in
one athletic activity but which should be totally unacceptable in another.
One
of the areas of Sri Lankan life with which I’ve had a degree of involvement
since my return to the land of my birth approximately six years ago has
beenclub
rugby. The reason for this was simple: a friend under whose captaincy
I played one of my first years of club rugby more than half a century ago
persuaded me that I had something to offer my old club despite or because of my
advancing years!
Navy
personnel in civvies clambering upto the members and VIP enclosure while
uniformed sailors look on and Navy goons looking for victims in the deserted
upper levels of the main pavilion
So
if you find anything offensive in this week’s column, you can blame my old buddy
for bringing me back into a (much changed) club rugby
culture.
At the inception, let me say that Sri Lanka will never achieve anything resembling competitive status on the international rugby stage simply due to the fact that, as a nation, we lack strength, girth and height, in comparison to the majority of those playing rugby elsewhere. Unfortunately, that has not prevented corruption of the sport to an extent that one might have expected in a sport such as cricket where the big bucks are available for embezzling, the usual gauge of ‘importance’ of anything in this country.
At the inception, let me say that Sri Lanka will never achieve anything resembling competitive status on the international rugby stage simply due to the fact that, as a nation, we lack strength, girth and height, in comparison to the majority of those playing rugby elsewhere. Unfortunately, that has not prevented corruption of the sport to an extent that one might have expected in a sport such as cricket where the big bucks are available for embezzling, the usual gauge of ‘importance’ of anything in this country.
