St. Peter’s College Bambalapitiya one of the leading catholic schools in Sri Lanka in preparation of the centenary celebrations has finalized arrangements to conduct an International Under 20 Schools Rugby 7’s tournament on October 14 and 15 to be played at St. Peter’s Sports Complex in Bambalapitiya which will see 16 teams in the fray battling it out for the Cup, Plate and Bowl titles.

Coming forward to support the St. Peter’s Rugby Foundation spearheaded by incumbent Samson Roy and immediate past President Mangala Dharmapriya and supported by Dilroy Fernando the tournament director are a host of sponsors with TDM as the Platinum sponsor, G.S. Sports and Nalin Jayawardena as Bronze sponsors, A Goal Rugby, Aaron’s, Basehp, Frosty, Hemas Hospital and Frosty to name a few as co-sponsors.

The 16 teams include seven teams from overseas comprising three from Australia, two from UAE and one each from Bahrain and Malaysia along with nine local schools teams.

The Bambalapitiya school has a rich history in the sports of rugby since they began playing in the year 1932 beginning with their first match against Royal and since then they have come a long way and since the year 2000 they have had the honour of winning eighteen trophies and are proudly the reigning schools league and knockout champions.

Though most of the top notch schools apart from Royal Colombo, Wesley, D.S.Senanayake College and Zahira the last two named made an impact in the recently concluded schools rugby season, are not in the fray. The participation of the teams from Australia, UAE, Bahrain and Malaysia will no doubt add color to this special event.

St. Peter’s Rector Fr. Rohitha Rodrigo in his address stressed that rugby at St. Peter’s is one of our flagship which has gained recognition in the years gone by and we are proud of the boys who played with dedication this season and succeeded to come out winners in the schools league and knockout champions.

In conclusion Fr, Rodrigo mentioned that this year has been a successful one for our school and to organize a tournament of this nature is not an easy task and mentioned that ‘We are grateful to sponsors for having the confidence and coming forward to support this event which is of great significance.

The player to take note of in this tournament will be Sri Lankan Aden Ekanayake the skipper of the Gordan Rugby FC New South Wales, Australia who is also captains the Australia U18 team and a future star of the Wallabies.

The tournament draw was held recently at the Very Rev.Fr. Maurice J. Legoc hall which was graced by the High Commissioner for Malaysia and Maldives, Badi Hisham Adam and a host of distinguished guests and 42 matches are scheduled to be played over the two days.

The tournament will get underway with the clash between host St. Peter’s and Thurstan at 8.30 a.m. on October 14. The other matches slotted to be played in the morning session are Zahira vs UTA Australia, Lumbini MV vs Gordon RFC, Royal vs Dubai College ‘B’, Vidyartha vs Bahrain RFC, Sri Sumangala vs Negeri Sembilan Malaysia, Wesley vs University of Technology Australia, DSS vs Dubai College ‘A’. St. Peter’s vs Zahira, Thurstan vs UTA Australia, Royal vs Gordon RFC and Lumbini MV vs Dubai College ‘B’. (M. Shamil Amit)

The Teams:

Group ‘A’ - St. Peter’s, UTA New South Wales, Australia, Zahira, Thurstan.Group ‘B’ – Royal Colombo, Lumbini MV, Gordan RFC, Dubai College ‘B’. Group ‘C’ -Vidyartha, Sri Sumangala Kandy, Negeri Sembilan Rugby Malaysia, Bahrain RFC. Group ‘D’ – DSS, Wesley, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, Dubai College ‘A’.