The traditional rugby encounter between Royal and Trinity has grown to such proportions that it brings to a halt all other rugby activities on the day of the Bradby. Last Saturday, the focus was on this rugby big match that was played at one of Kandy’s best known rugby venues, the Bogambara Stadium.

Sri Lanka’s rugby is known to have quantity with so much rugby being played by players numbering well over 100,000. However, there is very little quality where matches in general are concerned. One wonders whether this traditional rugby fixture, termed as the mother of all rugby matches played in Sri Lanka, has driven in a point to rugby administrators, players and sponsors that maintaining tradition in sport promises a sporting event of lofty standards.

With last Saturday’s game, where royal beat Trinity 22-12, we have witnessed 65 matches in the Bradby Shield series. All these matches are of great importance to those who featured in them. The coveted Bradby Shield, presented in memory of that great rugby personality E. L. Bradby, the red, yellow and blue and the blue and gold jerseys and a stadium packed to the brim are features of the match which suggest that something great is happening inside the stadium, whenever these two schools meet at rugby.

Both schools, their old boys and the present teams of the two schools take great pains each year to make the Bradby Shield, a memorable outing. This writer knows for a fact that this match receives lavish sponsorship and the gets television coverage too. No other rugby match played in Sri Lankan receives so much attention from sponsors and the electronic media.

It might suggest to the present generation of players and administrators that all this has come Royal and Trinity’s way, as if on a platter. This wouldn’t be right thinking. So much has gone into this series to make it Sri Lanka’s rugby fixture of the year. From a player’s perspective, even a very weak side, be it Trinity or Royal, is sent through hard drills to make the team competitive enough for the game. That is why a lot of rugby analysts say that the unthinkable can happen at the Bradby.

Players are known to even risk injury and represent their schools at the Bradby. The average player plays like a professional, come Bradby day. All who have had the Bradby experience will vouch that the adrenaline rush in players is unbelievable. Players of each school who feature in any given year of the Bradby maintain lasting relationships. The Bradby has the ability to gel those who belong to this special ‘community’.

What have other rugby playing institutions learned from this great rugby match? The Bradby was in no way threatened by the problems that cropped up in the schools scene, where one school threatened the existence of the inter-school rugby tournament by taking the schools rugby authority to court. Rugby critics opine that Royal and Trinity would go to any extent to beat each other at rugby. But they vouch that the two schools would never seek the assistance of the courts to settle a dispute between them.

All schools must take a cue from these two schools as to how a relationship should be maintained in sport. These two schools have shown that the importance of rugby goes beyond the result of a match. They have also underscored the fact that one school has to, at times, go out of its way to maintain the spirit of the game.