Sports

Sports

Royal see second half blues
S. Thomas’ 20 - Royal 5
By Shamseer Jaleel
When Royal planted their solitary try of the match in the twenty-seventh minute of the game, may be none of the players or the ardent Royal fan would have thought that the Thomian grit would prevail. After a blank initial half the gutty Thomians came back with a vengeance in the second to sendout a warning to all the “A” division schools in the Singer League under 20 when they outplayed their traditional rivals by 20 points (4 tries) to 5 points (1 try) at Havelock Park yesterday. Thus S. Thoams’ took charge of the coveted Michael Gunaratne trophy after a lapse of five long years.

At “Lemons” the Reid Avenue boys led 5-0. In the first half both teams failed to dish out quality rugby expected and it was a scrappy affair. Both teams had a number of handling errors. Royal settled and played well in the last few minutes of the initial half with Dimithri Woo scoring by the left corner through a forwards rush. Though skipper and stand off Varun Wijewardena missed the kick he gained a lot of territorial advantage through his booming touch kicks which kept the Thominans under severe pressure. Royal went into the short breather with a 5-0 lead.

In the second half the Thomian defence was at peak with skipper and the national youth skipper Namal Rajapakse stopping number of threatening moves by their opponents. He not only pulled off some fine cover tackles but also with some superb lose play. The lads from Mt Lavinia exposed a number of chinks in the Royal amour as they rattled the Royal side with some furious tackling.

The Thomians had too much of flair and power as they ran in 4 unanswered tries in this half against a disappointing Royal side who ran out of ideas. They opened scoring in the 8th minute of the second half through a sweeping three quarter move ending with winger Niranjan Bibile running over the line to plant a try. Nilakshan Muttetuwegama missed the conversation. As the Thomians settled and re grouped and took command through their superior and heavier sets of forwards and their three quarters clicking well.

In the 12th minute skipper Namal Rajapkse won the ball in the lose and set the line in attacking position with three quarters moving smoothly which ended with winger Nilakshan Muttetuegama chipping a kick, collecting and scoring a superb try far right. The Thomians in an attacking mood scored once again in the 23rd minute through a fine lose play by Yoshitha Rajapakse (younger brother of Namal) scoring mid left.

Once again the kick was missed by Sanjay Samarasinghe. In the last minute of the game Sanjay Samarasinghe made up for the missed kicks by scoring the last try of the match which was initiated by the three quarters. Though this was a close affair young referee Pradeep Fernando handled the game well.
Royal won the under 17 match 8-7. Royal will meet Wesley in their next encounter on 29 July at the Sugathadasa Stadium.

Top