Matthew Dinning Memorial Rugby Tournament returns to Wingham

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

Every year, when spring comes to Wingham, the Matthew Dinning Memorial Rugby Tournament brings high school athletes together in a field for a fierce yet friendly competition. One thing that really made this year’s tournament stand out was some sublime weather - positively perfect for scrumming on the pitch. It was a welcome change from the past few years, which have seen players competing in rain, sleet or even snow.

 

But the annual event is not just a day for students to try their hand at one of the world’s most challenging sports, it’s also a day of remembrance that honours the life of Cpl. Matthew Dinning: a former F.E. Madill student who was passionate about rugby. Dinning was one of four Canadian Armed Forces members killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2006, along with Cpl. Randy Payne, Lt. William Turner, and Bdr. Myles Mansell. 

 

Every year, Matthew’s father, Lincoln Dinning, attends the tournament to share a memory of his son with the ever-changing sea of young competitors. “Nineteen years ago yesterday, my oldest son Matthew was killed in Afghanistan. He was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, and his vehicle was hit by an IED. We lost four soldiers that day. Matthew went to school here, and he played rugby on this very field. So thank you for coming, and for keeping his memory alive,” he told them this year. “It was 19 years ago yesterday that we lost Matthew. Sometimes it feels like 19 years. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

 

The fight for freedom comes in many forms. It is all too easy to think of war in terms of what we see in the movies - a young, brash man who enlists to fight the good fight, dying in a blaze of glory, guns firing to the very end. But that is not the kind of mission that Matthew was on the day he died with three other men. They were on their way back from a small village where they’d been sent to communicate with local elders when the roadside bomb ripped through the lightly armoured Mercedes-Benz in which they were riding. 

 

According to reports, Payne was known to revel in playing with the children in each village they visited. It made sense - Payne was an avid hockey fan who had two young children at home. Mansell’s games of choice were soccer and lacrosse. Turner was a former teacher and mail carrier who brought his lifelong love of knowledge all the way to Afghanistan - when war correspondent Christie Blatchford first encountered him, he was asking his interpreter to tell him the names of native plants and flowers. These were the men that Matthew was fighting with, and that is the way in which they chose to fight for what they believed in. 

 

Wingham’s annual rugby tournament doesn’t just memorialize the ultimate sacrifice Matthew made - it celebrates the things that made him feel most alive. It turns rugby from just a game into a reminder that character can be forged by challenge, and that our faith in freedom is formed in moments of hardship. 

 

As is so common with our service members, Matthew lived a life driven by the values he believed in. As a rugby player, he was both tough and selfless. As a soldier, he laid down his life - not just for his fellow Canadians, but because he believed that he could do something to help the people of Afghanistan to feel as free as he felt. 

 

This rugby tournament, held in his memory, has become a space where, every year, young athletes are invited to reflect not on what it means to win, but what it means to fight for something, be it freedom, or a rugby ball. No one player can succeed on their own - they must trust those beside them, through tackles, scrums and setbacks. Success is not measured by dominance, but through cohesion and camaraderie in the midst of calamity.

 

In remembering Matthew, the tournament grows new memories around the shape of his absence. It transforms grief into action, into a living story of resilience, where loss is not forgotten, but purposeful. The young athletes who take the field are not just playing for school pride or personal achievement, they are stepping into a legacy that challenges them to rise up to meet the courage of a man who inspired so many in his too-short life. 

 

The discourse surrounding the fight for freedom so often concerns itself with the loftiest of social constructs - freedom of speech, freedom to govern, freedom to pray. And those are all incredibly worthy things for which to fight. But there is no freedom quite as free as the one that all children feel when they play, unafraid, in the sunshine.