CHRIS DHAMBARAGE
COLOMBO – Royal College brought an end to Isipathana’s unbeaten record this season with a stunning 22-17 victory in their Inter-Schools Under-19 Division One League Rugby Tournament Super Round segment fixture played at the Royal Sports Complex in Colombo.
The lads from Reid Avenue, brought their A-game for this decisive encounter and won their second successive Trophy for the season while collecting their points from one goal and five penalties.
Royal regained the Major Milroy Fernando Memorial Trophy as they ended Isipathana’s 16-match winning streak after last week’s heroics where they retained the Bradby Shield for the seventh successive year.
This was another masterclass performance from Royal, whose defensive techniques were at high standard while leaving the desperate Isipathana players isolated on several occasions.
They denied the opposition through some very effective tackling and frustrated the Isipathana three quarters from running around freely, which they have performed successfully throughout this season.
Royal, of course, had a slight physical advantage over their opponents with their forwards, spearheaded by Skipper and number eight Randul Senanayake dominating possession in the line-outs and set-pieces.
But this time Royal opted to use their backline more often unlike in the previous game and that ploy certainly surprised their opponents as centre three quarter Duljaya Gamanayake, Thivain Perera and Philio Calyaneratne always threatened to cross the whitewash.
In trying to defend their goal-line, Isipathana conceded too many penalties to their opponents and Royal gladly obliged with Nabil Yehiya firing a total of five penalties under pressure in addition to one conversion.
Meanwhile, Trinity College bounced back into recognition with a splendid 31-20 victory over S. Thomas’ College in their annual Inter-Schools Under-19 rugby encounter played at Mount Lavinia.
The Trinitians, after their defeat at the hands of traditional rivals Royal last week, came back strongly to make an impact as they went on to retain the Canon R. S. De Saram Shield for another year.
This fixture, of course, was not part of the league tournament but Trinity would not mine success at this stage as this would provide them a great amount of confidence ahead of the knock-out tournament.
The match turned out to be a contest between the two place-kickers as Trinity’s young full back Shan Althaf once again dished out a superb performance to outsmart the more experienced Thomian fly half Yehan Bulathsinghalage.
Althaf was on target with all four conversions and put over a vital penalty during the dying moments of the game to put the issue beyond doubt after the home side had threatened to stage a surprise late rally.
Bulathsinghalage figured in a vain effort as he added the extra points to their two tries and fired across two good penalties to keep their hopes alive.
