St. Anthony’s College Kandy has been declared winners of school rugby’s inaugural Quadrangle’s Spirit of the Game Award, the Lorenz Pereira Trophy, which was presented to the Most Disciplined School that upheld the spirit of the game in 2018.
St. Peter’s College missed the prize by a whisker as first runner-up while Royal College was adjudged second runner-up.
The award was initiated by the Quadrangle Magazine (www.quadrangle.lk) to promote fair play and the Spirit of the Game among all stakeholders of school sports and eradicate hooliganism, while recognising sportsmanship and conduct on and off the field.
They were awarded the trophy at a ceremony held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute on Friday night attended by school principals, masters in charge of sports, coaching staff, school rugby captains and representatives of many leading Old Boys Unions of schools from Kandy, Colombo and Galle.
Also in attendance was Lorenz Pereira, the donor of the trophy and a proud product of Royal College who excelled in cricket, rugby, athletics and tennis during the 1950s. He went on to lead the Combined Schools XI and All Ceylon Rugby XV and was the first Ceylonese to captain CH and FC at club rugby.
He called on everyone involved in rugby to ensure rugby stays as a game played by gentlemen in his address and hoped the award would inspire every player and school.
Sujith Silva, the Editor in Chief of the Quadrangle came up with the concept of ‘Spirit of the Game’ to promote sportsmanship across school sports while binding not only players and officials to stick to the rules but also coaching staff, parents and spectators to fall in line with their sporting conduct.
The Magazine monitored and studied reports on schools rugby matches as well as feed backs from referees on conduct at games that also involved spectator behaviour.
An independent panel of judges was appointed to go through all the findings and reports to pick the winner. The panel comprised Eesha Spelldewinde, Principal of Ladies College Colombo 7, Neil Wijeratne, Attorney at Law a sports enthusiast, historian and writer who was recently inducted into the Sri Lanka Rugby Hall of Fame, Dilroy Fernando an IRB Referee and Shanaka Amarasinghe sports commentator.