Triumphs, burnout and bigger questions
Finally, now that the dust has settled after a rigorous and highly followed Dialog Schools Rugby League 2025, school teams and players will be pondering what their next move should be. The near two-month competition surely provided what ardent followers of local school rugby anticipate – the thrills and shocks.
But beyond that, it also did not fail to entertain other sectors, those who are vigilantly on the watch until the referee makes an error or perhaps something closer that brings a disadvantage to their respective teams. Then there were referees, who overall completed a daunting task with fewer errors than usual. Let us not forget the ones who wake up from their long slumber just to actively be part of the annual school rugby festivity of two months, notably on social media platforms. That too at times as ‘overall experts’ of the game and that is when the real experts become mere amateurs.
There are members of old boys’ groups from each school, mostly from the top divisions, who sometimes forget they have families and other commitments during this period. Those very same groups also make sure the matches their school hosts are always played before a full house, a fact that every team can boast of for many moons to come.
Then there are corporate and commercial partners, who readily wait for the authorities and old boys’ groups of top rugby-playing schools to approach them and invite them to be part of this annual gala. A school at present needs to cover an overwhelming cost to manage their respective rugby teams, whose playing jerseys are covered with corporate logos more than those of top division clubs or even the national sides. What makes school rugby so appealing to all these sectors is a question not even international experts or pundits of rugby could fathom. Proving those facts, the concluded Dialog Schools Rugby League 2025 season too provided all the whatnots any follower of the game could expect. Beginning from the change of the title holders and the sudden plunge of the defending champs, who had to wait until the showdown game to prove their true potential. That too ending the unbeaten run of the newly crowned league champs Trinity College, who deservedly ended a 38-year drought to reclaim the local schools’ rugby plum.
Wesley College, a team earlier strongly tipped to claim the title, eventually finished as runners-up with only two defeats, that too against eventual champs Trinity and Isipathana. Royal College, another title contender, finished at third with two defeats – one against Trinity and the other against Wesley. S. Thomas’ College, who had a rare opportunity to lay their hands on the league title with their superlative performance throughout the first round, eventually suffered three defeats – against Trinity, Royal and Wesley – to end up at fourth in the Cup segment.
Coming in as defending champions after pulling out of the Knockout Championship, St. Peter’s College failed to find their usual rhythm, despite claiming unimpressive wins during the first round, until they were well defeated by Wesley. They suffered two more defeats to complete their 2025 campaign at fifth, but the final week’s 22-20 thriller against Trinity would be a solace to an otherwise underwhelming season. Isipathana College had a rather mixed season in 2025 as they completed at sixth with a win against Wesley and four defeats. Even with a fleet of star players, Isipathana still had to succumb to situations and the superiority of their opponents which made them look like just another team.
D. S. Senanayake College secured the Plate Championship with an unbeaten run in the second round, even toppling St. Joseph’s College and pushing them to the second slot of the segment. St. Anthony’s College claimed the Bowl Championship with a run of four wins and a loss in five games while Mahanama College finished at second. But in an overall perspective, this season was a survival of the fittest, a test Trinity College clinically overcame with their performances that could only be compared to a top-ranked international team.
This begs the question if the status of school rugby in Sri Lanka has pushed beyond its required peripherals. While pompously enjoying its status in Sri Lanka’s sporting arena as the most followed competition ever, has school rugby done what the introduction of video in the 1980s did to the radio star? Has the ever-growing demand to produce a ‘killer team’ for one season, with heavy commercial backing and a huge fan base, slayed the values of school rugby and more importantly its direct stars and contributors, the schoolboy players?
A partly accurate answer for these questions was constructively discussed in one of Sri Lanka’s popular online shows – Ruck N Roll on PodHub hosted by well-renowned rugby commentator Shanaka Amarasinghe – where former national athlete and psychiatrist Dr Chamara Wijesinghe aptly termed the “high-stakes environment a ‘Coliseum’, where ‘Caesar is waiting’ to pass judgment on schoolboy athletes who are being pushed to a point of burnout and distress.”
“Now the level is much higher than the days we used to play. Something that we have to accept is that the bar is set so much higher, and along with such elite-level performance comes that degree of stress. Rugby is so much better than our days, that these boys would thrash a team of our era with a higher margin. Having said that, we were a happy bunch who went on to do reasonably well, but the stresses of modern-day school rugby are frightening,” emphasised Dr Wijesinghe, a former Davis Cup tennis player who turned out for Sri Lanka.
Contributing further to this undetected factor is the higher expectation from a bunch of young schoolboy teenagers; to push beyond their required limits and deliver the goods. To achieve these demands, these youngsters tend to commit themselves overly, sacrifice their desires often common among others of their own age group, even physically burn out to shape themselves to look more like professional athletes.
Though the season is limited to continuous weeks up to two months, the preparation process runs beyond that period, with pre-season training and boot camps running up to the competition. More or less, these youngsters are required to commit themselves equally as much as a professional athlete of global recognition. And these schoolboy athletes do deliver as required, which was evidently proven this season with the almost-professional playing styles. But are they being over-utilised to the extent that a slight mishap or failure could completely break them down, and are they being listened to, or is the well-being of these youngsters being overlooked by those who are supposed to be their caretakers?
“It is really good to see the level of school rugby now, but with that comes a point where the youngsters are burned out. Matters vary, and interestingly it is not the kid who comes but mostly parents or coaches who bring them for consultation claiming their commitment and contribution to the game has changed or behavioural disturbances. The concern is, most of these parents and coaches come worried about the performances and lack of contributions from the boy, and not about the boy,” an alarmed Dr Wijesinghe added.
What could entirely contribute to change this mindset of overly depending on a young set of athletes, who should in reality be enjoying the game while playing with pride for their respective schools, according to Dr Wijesinghe, is firstly by educating the parents and supporters about the game, and more importantly not to apply obsessive pressure on the young ones.
A complete overhaul of the structure of the competition would also be ideal, now that the competition is over for this season, where the top division featured 18 teams in a single bunch. As the Schools Section aptly played the Knockout Championship ahead of the Schools League, the authorities could also stick to the same number of teams per division. As followed in the Knockouts, the Presidents, Premier and Chairman Cups feature eight teams each, and why not the same number in the League as Cup, Plate and Bowl, and then adopt a promotion and relegation system accordingly.
This could also help the Referees’ Society in keeping up with the demands of the Schools Section, who had all nine fixtures of Division IA on the same day, more than once. Tony Amit, a former President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Referees’ Society and a former renowned coach, acknowledged the fact that Referees’ Society struggled to provide quality referees for nine games played in a single day. Now that the season has ended with proper backing from all quarters, and the Schools Section has once again shown how far it can take rugby, it is time to bring back and adhere to the once-cherished values of the sport. It is time the Schools Section and all member schools sit together and think of a structure where school rugby is joyful to the players as it is entertaining to those who obsessively follow it.