Call me unpatriotic if you think you must but I am compelled to believe that there is little or no encouragement in the words ‘playing for the country’ where rugby is concerned, at present.

My thinking is based on the fact that a good number of national rugby players have made it a habit of pulling out of national pool training as and when they wish.

So when Dilanka Wijesekere pulled out of the national squad at the eleventh hour, possibly being disgruntled by being denied of the captaincy, it marked another occasion when the rugby fraternity was given a clear message that money and legally drafted contracts were things that rugby professionals responded to with enthusiasm in comparison to things like the lion flag, the white jersey and the phrase ‘playing for the sake of the country.’

The same can be said about Pavithra Fernando who has put his interests before anything else. Making a protest, as told to this writer by the Sports Minister, Fernando is said to have stressed that he should be considered as captain. In the process, he disregarded the nominations made by the former rugby selectors and in making a case for himself, he highlighted the fact that he knew he wouldn’t be picked as captain and hence had no regard for the work of the national rugby selectors.

The rugby interim committee too wasn’t acting with the country’s interest at heart with the manner in which they set things up so that the Sports Minister got involved, directly or indirectly, and ensured that the nomination made by the rugby selectors was overruled by the national selection committee. The results were so damaging that a subsequent player revolt ensured a depleted side went for the tournament in Dubai.

So let’s keep this phrase, ‘for the sake of national rugby’ out of the equation. It just doesn’t help sell rugby as a product, in this country.

Let’s focus on the camp of the former national selectors, in case you didn’t know there is new selection committee now, and see why they didn’t have things going there way. They did everything keeping within the rules of fair play and regulations specified by the sport law in making the selections, a recipe which spelt doom on them. Why? Because this is the way the country functions in most spheres; the good man is usually left out and the guy who does things the not-so-correct way gets in and has a whale of a time.

Want to give up? I’d say try facing the challenges that exist by working smart and then take a decision. The national selectors should have first envisioned Dilanka Wijesekere running out leading the side in Dubai. Then they should have mapped out a plan and worked towards achieving it, even if they had to work on a give-and-take policy with Dr. Maiya Gunasekere and the Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge.

Kalyan Sagar Nippani, the author of the book ‘The seventh sense’ dedicates a chapter on how the weak forge alliances with the strong to achieve a certain objective. There are also interesting paragraphs in this book which state how small animals use their highly sensitive devices within to detect trouble brewing miles away.

The national selectors were once ‘bitten’ when they encountered a situation when the sports minister appointed an additional captain in a national squad that already had a skipper appointed by the national rugby selectors. Having the advantage of hindsight, the national rugby selectors should have had their sources sending them signals of the calculated moves that were being made to appoint Fernando as captain, instead of Wijesekere.

If the goal of the former national rugby selectors was to see Wijesekere captains, then the best possible decision to have taken would have been to name two captains, but with the blessings of the rugby interim committee. Both parties would have won if this happened and Sri Lanka rugby wouldn’t have plunged to such depths.

Nippani states in the book, ‘For relationships to endure, winning both ways must be ensured.’

The former rugby selectors forgot to fathom that they were working for the sports minister who is having close ties with Dr. Gunasekere. One wouldn’t understand how to map a master plan for victory if his mantra is: ‘I am doing a honourary job and I would leave if there is interference.’

Another mistake the former national selectors did was to delay naming the captain till the last moment. Even in school rugby, a captain is named in assembly, long before the first practice session takes place. My point is this. Everybody knew that Fernando was working hard, for some time, towards making a comeback to the national team, following an injury. In this era, people, whether in sport or any other profession, have enough avenues to make rapid improvement thanks to all the information available on internet.

As a result, their thinking and how they take decisions regarding a certain subject is likely to differ greatly as the years roll by.

Boxing great Muhammad Ali once told ‘Readers Digest’ that if a man hasn’t changed in his thinking after a period of five years, he has wasted those five years of his life. Who knows how Fernando has changed over the years and whether his colleagues would have liked those changes in his thinking if there were any.

The same could be said about Wijesekere because he too was unknown quantity as Sri Lanka captain having led the national team at a single match. So, regardless of whoever was appointed captain, there was very little time for the players to adjust to the demands of their captain, assuming that they rectified the crisis rugby faced just before the tour.

A prominent marketing guru once said, ‘you get nothing from people who work for nothing.’ I’ll leave the rugby selectors out of the equation here and talk about the players.

India’s IPL series became a hit in cricket because the organisers bought the players over by throwing in a lot of money. Actor Big Jon Benn affirms in one scene of Bruce Lee’s blockbuster movie ‘Way of the dragon’ that money will buy cooperation when two potential candidates for a killing contract didn’t see eye to eye because they were from different schools of martial arts.

It is learnt that the rugby authorities had tried their best to persuade Fernando and Wijesekere to share the captaincy during the tour but Wijesekere was going to have none of it despite Fernando showing the will to do so. Pardon me for recalling a rather crude saying which seems apt at this juncture. ‘Money talks, bullshit walks.’ We know that a lot of money was spent on the players to train and feed them but was big money on offer for the players in terms of payment? Very, very doubtful.

Too many things in this country are given free including one of the finest things in rugby; offering one’s service to the country. The recent developments right up to the Asian Five Nations confirmed the players in Sri Lanka have been treated shabbily. It wouldn’t come in as a surprise if someone with clout in this country gets the players together and forms a rugby players’ association.

It’s very hard to please these players’ associations because they demand the very best for the players and can also put real pressure on errant rugby administrators.