CHRIS DHAMBARAGE
COLOMBO – Full back Yehan Bulathsinghalage produced a fine exhibition of place-kicking as S. Thomas’ College came from behind to beat St. Joseph’s College 26-24 in a thrilling Inter-Schools Under-19 Division One League Rugby Tournament encounter played at Mount Lavinia.
The Thomians were trailing 0-12 at one stage but they rallied around through the individual brilliance of Bulathsinghalage and scored two late tries to snatch the game from the jaws of defeat and regained the Lady Jayathilaka Shield.
Bulathsinghalage had another outstanding game where he was on target with four penalties – most of them from a long distance – and followed up by adding the extra points to their two tries for a match tally of 16 points.
S. Thomas’ also boosted their chances of qualifying for the Super Round segment of the tournament with their third win from four outings while St. Joseph’s, the last year league runners-up, face a daunting task of making it to the next stage.
The home side, who were trailing until the last few minutes of the game, unleashed a ferocious attack on their opponents and managed to take the lead with two converted tries from Skipper Viyaan de Silva and Mohamed Hakeem.
The absence of Number Eight Naveen Marasinghe, following a yellow card, did not do any good to the Joes as their last attempt to penetrate the Thomian defence turned out to be futile.
Meanwhile, Royal College produced a powerful second-half performance to down Dharmaraja College 36-18 in their Inter-Schools Under-19 Division One League Rugby Tournament match played at the Royal Sports Complex in Colombo.
The former league champions brushed aside the Rajans with four superb tries in the second half and kept their goal line uncrossed for the third successive week as they warmed-up for this week’s 77th Bradby Shield first leg encounter against Trinity College in Kandy.
Royal, of course, had few early setbacks and conceded too many penalties to their opponents before they stormed in with two back-to-back tries to level the scores 12-12 at half time.
Thereafter, Royal took total control of the game through their heavy set of forwards and went on to record another bonus-point win and secured their spot in the Super Round segment.
