This weekend's wind and constant drizzle forced most wise people to stay inside.

Undaunted by the elements, rugby players from 16 New England colleges congregated at Soldiers Field as scheduled to participate in the New England Collegiate Rugby Championship.

When the tourney ended, under darkening skies at 5 p.m. Sunday evening, Dartmouth was the New England champion and Harvard had taken first place in the consolation bracket.

The Crimson survived a sluggish first half to beat Southern Connecticut State University, 4-0, on Bruce Rossow's try nine minutes into sudden-death overtime in the consolation finals.

The ruggers--who had defeated Providence College and UConn to gain the finals--were actually lucky to be in position to win on only one try.

Southern Connecticut dominated the first 30 minutes but failed to score, missing three kicks. And the visitors appeared to have finally scored in the second half, when they blocked a Harvard kick and claimed to have recovered it for a try. But the referee ruled that Harvard had recovered the ball, and the match remained deadlocked at 0-0.

The deciding try came after a Harvard kick went out of bounds at Southern Connecticut's five-meter dominated city council debate and the CCA platform for several years. The CCA-supported policy which regulates rent in low- and moderate-income city housing, was finally passed into law in 1969, but the liberal party lost substantial support in the process.

"Towards the end of the 60s, most people became more socially conscious, and the CCA simply joined this enlightened awareness," says Elaine Kistiakowsky, active in the association for 25 years and currently one of its vice presidents. "To have not changed meant you had to be very unconcerned with people."

Since then, the CCA has continued its support of progressive policy by endorsing slates of candidates for election to the nine-member city council and the seven-member school committee.

Recent issues of concern for the group have included a civilian review board for the Cambridge Police Department, in the wake of charges of racial discrimination by the force, and the perennial problems of Cambridge's tight housing market.

"We haven't lost our focus on government, we've just added the concern for social issues," says City Councilor David E. Sullivan, a CCA-endorsee.

This year, however, the association is facing yet another split in its supporters. A new group known as Coalition '85, many of whom live in rent-controlled buildings and have traditionally supported CCA-endorsed candidates, are running three candidates of their own this year.

In addition, the CCA is faced with increasingly hostile attacks from Cambridge realtors, who say that rent control policies actually force up city rent levels, and urge residents to vote for one of the Independent candidates. The Independents, who form a looser coalition, are generally more conservative and tend to have deeper roots in city neighborhoods.

The issue of rent control becomes crucial because of the form of city government. Most legislation requires a five-member majority on the city council, but rent control issues require six votes to institute change. For years, neither the CCA nor the conservative faction has been able to gain a majority on the council.

Before 1953, the CCA regularly elected five of the nine councilors, yet since then the number has averaged four--not enough to engineer any major legislation. All four current members of the council who received CCA endorsements are running for re-election, along with two newcomers. Outside competition for the liberal votes of Cambridge could result in several of the candidates losing the election, or even the CCA losing one of its four council seats.

"It's a major challenge, but I think the CCA will meet it," says Sullivan. "A lot more heat is being generated by a few defectors from the CCA than is merited by their political clout."

"They're people who haven't participated in the CCA for years--they're relics of a past generation," Sullivan says, adding that in his opinion the controversy has proven beneficial to the CCA by forcing the association to define its position on issues such as condominium conversion; issues on which the organization earlier was reluctant to take a stand