The age-old rugby enmity between Harare public schools Ellis Robins and Allan Wilson fared up again last week at the Bob 93 Games, leading to the abandonment of their emotionally-charged group stage encounter.

Ellis Robins had taken a commanding 12-0 lead when AWS walked off the pitch at Prince Edward halfway through the first half, complaining over the way the umpire was handling the match.

Allan Wilson and Ellis Robins have what is believed to be the longest running rugby feud that has survived into the country's post-independence since its genesis in the colonial era.

The weekend game was in fact the only one in four years that had gotten off to a successful start. In 2014, Ellis Robins refused to take to the park at a tournament they were hosting claiming they had identified two non-schoolboys on the Allan Wilson team card.

Previously, organisers of invitational tournaments at PE, Churchill, Marlborough and Bulawayo's Hartsfield, had fretfully separated the two schools when drawing up competition fixtures.

This was however lost on the Bob 93 Games organising committee who had rugby on their programme for the first time since inception of the festival almost 10 years ago.

Courtesy of the ensuing walkover, Fash piled on the points with further victories over Goromonzi 10-0, Kutama College 5-0 and Tafara High 27-0 to proceed to the final where Kutama reversed their fortunes to win the competition 12-7.

Mathias Mandihlare, master in charge of rugby at Ellis Robins, regretted what had happened.

"I do not know what to make of Dub's contact. For about 14 years now our games with them have not been smooth and it is something that existed even before I arrived at Fash but we are hoping we can mend bridges soon,'' he told Sportszone.co.zw.

Allan Wilson sports director Livingstone Maurukira said his school had not fielded an official rugby team at the Bob 93 Games.

"The rugby first team has not started preparations yet. The team that played at the weekend tournament was just made up of some boarders who had crossed into Prince Edward to enjoy the proceedings in the Bob 93 Games.

"They decided to form a team and register for the tournament when they heard there was a vacant slot in the rugby programme. I am told by one of our first teamers who volunteered to coach that the boys were disillusioned by the conduct of the referee who, allegedly, was not blowing for high tackles against them,'' said Maurukira.

He acknowledged the lingering tension between the two schools but said the rival schools' respective sports departments were trying hard to narrow the gap.

"Whenever they (Fash) come to play us we host them well. But some of the games played there in Mabelreign have ended in conflict. I am told in the past if Ellis Robins lost at home their supporters would close the gates and harass our team before it left,'' he said.

Research by Sportszone.co.zw failed to unearth the origins of the two schools' conflict which is said to be one of the most fierce of all local rugby rivalry.

An old boy of Ellis Robins, known as Sir Victor, gave what is perhaps the nearest accurate explanation of how the rivalry could have unfolded.

"In my time at school in the 90s I just heard it had something to do with our mottos. At Fash we are called "The Gentle Men" while at Dub they say they are "Men of Men''. This appears to have been played up during the Rhodesian days and has failed to end.''

In an interview with Sportszone.co.zw, Tendai "T-Buns" Zhakata, chairman of the Bob 93 Games organising committee, said they were not taking any action against Allan Wilson.

"The incident came to our attention when we doing the match-by-match review of all the six disciplines that were staged. It's a matter for our rugby sub-committee to put in place measures that prevent further incidents of this nature from next year onwards,'' Zhakata said.

The Bob 93 Games rugby competition accorded several schools an opportunity to assess their strengths before the season starts as most only start playing during the Dairibord Rugby Festival with some having no fixtures even afterwards.