Trinity overcome S. Thomas’ to reach Knockout semis
Trinity held on to a 17-10 lead at the breather and accumulated their points through three converted tries and a penalty against two tries, a conversion and a penalty scored by S. Thomas’. The Thomians only have to blame themselves for throwing away scoring opportunities in the second half, where the two sides were only able to breach each other’s defence only once.
Trinity fullback Shan Althaf stunned the Thomian defence to cover over half of teh field to brace a try - Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
The first half turned out to be a closely contested affair with the Thomians surprising the Trinitians by drawing first blood when the game just three minutes old. This was after hooker Evon Perera went over for an easy try, which gave centre Mayunka Dias an easy conversion.
Undeterred, Trinity took up the challenge and made some sporadic moves as they succeeded in the 13th minute with No.8 Shrayan Santheshkumar going over for a try. Reliable place kicker and fullback Shan Althaf, who had earned a big name for himself, made no mistake with the conversion as both teams were locked at 7-all.
Much was expected from the Trinitians but awkwardly they were unable to have things their way due to the stiff resistance put in by the Thomian defence. It took another 13 minutes for the next scoring to be done which was by Trinity that came through a penalty booted over by Althaf to take the lead 10-7.
The Thomians made it clear with a penalty booted over by Dias, but Trinity surged two minutes away from the short whistle with flanker Evan Jayaweera’s try. With Althaf conversion Trinity led 17-10 at the breather.
On resumption it was the opposite of the first half as Trinity increased their lead in the 38th minute with a peach of a try by Althaf, who ran over 50 metres and crash down. Converting his own try, Althaf put Trinity way ahead 24-10.
From here on the two teams shared the honours, but neither were unable to breach each other’s defence until the Thomians succeeded in the 64th minute with lock Mercklye Karunaratne going over for an unconverted try. Later in the dying stages of the match a try posted by S. Thomas’ was disallowed after it was found placed short of the tryline. With no further scoring done the Trinitians prevailed with a 24-15 win to advance to the semi-final.