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The
Captain of the 1st STC ML 1st XIV Rugby Team - 1955
Mr.
K. S. Ananathan
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First year of
Rugby
Football -1955
When
one is rapidly approaching the Biblical span of
three score
and ten years the memory tends to play a lot of tricks. Since I have been
requested to jot down my thoughts about the first year of Rugger at S. Thomas’
College, I shall endeavour to do this as best as I can.
Our
transformation from Soccer to
Rugby
was quite an event in 1955. Justice E. F. N. Gratiaen was instrumental in
influencing Warden R. S. de Saram to make the change. He is reported to have told
the Warden that ”Football was a working class game and no boy at STC
would get into the planting sector unless he played Rugger.” Some of us were
aware that Rugger was to be introduced in the second term. We took to hanging
around the CR&FC grounds during the holidays hoping to pick some of the
finer points of the game from the stalwarts of that year like Mahes Rodrigo, Ago
Paiva, Ashroff Cader to name just a few. We did not pick up very much apart from
‘fielding’ the ball whenever it went out of play since they were too busy
practising to worry about us.
Having
played Soccer all our lives Rugger was quite alien to us. We were tutored in the
basics by Mahes Rodrigo, an old Royalist and
Johnny Walker and several others. Despite this we still had a tendency to
dribble the oblong ball instead of picking it up and running as we remembered
the ‘hand ball’ rule in Soccer. Forward passes seem to be the order of the
day. Mr. Lassie Abeywardene who was more at home coaching cricket was appointed
Master in Charge. He was as
clueless as most of us. We however carried on with a grim determination. What we
lacked in knowledge of the game we made up in guts and true Thomian grit.
As
expected Brookie d’ Silva, the athletic coach, was totally against the
introduction of Rugby on the grounds, quite rightly, that his star athletes
would sustain injuries on the hard ‘Big Club’ grounds, And, as expected, our
crack sprinter M. Balasubramaniam who had won the 100 Yards and 220 Yards and
helped in winning the 4 x110 yard relay at the Public Schools Athletic Meet the
previous year fractured his hand following a bad fall during practise. The
critics were obviously proved right that the ‘Big Club’ was not a place for
Rugger. But there was no where else to go so we die-hards continued practising
under the watchful eyes of our coaches. Injuries were sustained with alarming
frequency but this did not deter us in anyway.
Despite
these setbacks and lack of knowledge we gave a very good account of ourselves
against veterans of the sport like Royal,
St. Peters
and Trinity. It may perhaps have been our chaotic style of play and our lack of
knowledge of the game that frustrated our opponents that the margins by which we
lost were quite small. We played our first unofficial game under the caption
Thomian Tigers against a team which called themselves Trinity Lions. It was a
fast game and of course we lost 11-6. This gave us enough confidence to take on
Trinity, Royal and
St. Peters
. We lost all these games but the margins, as mentioned, were very small.
One
incident stands out in my memory; the Royalists had a front row forward who was
tipping the scales at around 250 pounds. At one stage in the game the scrum
collapsed and our diminutive hooker was under the hefty forward and pleading for
him to get off as he could not breathe! This raised quite a laugh. There was no
serious injury and I wonder if he is still around and may perhaps remember the
incident.
In
conclusion I would like to wish S. Thomas’
Rugby
and the Old Thomas Rugby Football Union all success in the future.
Details
of the 1st Rugby Captain (1955)
Surname : Kanagasabay
Other Names :Satkuna Ananathan
Profession : Retired Mercantile Executive
Contact Nos : Res. 00 64 4 232 9089
Cell 021 172 5301
Postal Address : 22 Turriff Crescent,
Tawa
Wellington
New Zealand
email address :
damos@xtra.co.nz
O/L Year : 1952
A/L Year : 1954/55
Year Joined : 1946
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