Archives

The confrontation between arch rivals CR and FC and Havelocks Sports club in the Caltex 'A' Division league rugby return match at Havelock Park today should turn out to be a thriller.

Both teams have failed to live upto expectations in the second round matches. The Red Shirts gave pathetic displays in the first two matches losing to CH and FC (8-17) and Police (13-14) before scoring a morale-boosting 30-14 win over Sri Lnaka Army last week. The lads form Havelock Park have lost their last three matches to Kandy (18-49), Army (28-41) and CH and FC (3-25) but today a close tussle for supremacy can be expected.

It was CR's power-packed forwards who paved the way for their victory last week with players of the calibre of Shantha Rohana, Abeysuriya, Roshan Perera, Jayasinghe, de Saram and Dinesh Fernando giving of their best but today they will be confronted by equally good forwards Hassan, Sornaratne, Jayasena, Bopearachchi, Wanasinghe and Pushapakumara and a terrific tussle for supremacy can be expected in the loose. In the set scrums the experienced CR hooker Viraj Prasantha should get the better of his vis-a-vis Pushpakumara while in the line outs the Havelocks duo of Sornaratne and Jayasena should hold sway.

It is left to be seen how the new CR halves combination of Nishantha and Kodagoda fares today. If they click than the Red Shirts should be able to breach the Havelocks defence as they have hard and penetrative runners in Ekanayake, Rodrigo, Gunaratne and Nishantha Kumara with full back Halimdeen joining the line to form the overlap. Havelocks have also moved Leonard de Zilwa to the scrum half berth at the expense of Mohamed Tariq and shifted Jason Jayasekera to the centre position in a bid to find fluency. If the halves combination hits it off smoothly then Havelocks could make maximum use of the 'good ball' that comes their way as they have two hard running centres in Jason Jayasekera and Ruwan Suranga with powerful runners Pradeep Sivakantha and Lalindra Rodrigo manning the wings.

HAVELOCKS - Shafi Hassan, Duminda Pushpakumara, Mohamed Intikhab, Rajiv Sornaratne (Captain), Chathuranga Amarasinghe, Siva Wanasinghe, Nishantha Bopearachchi, Kavinda Jayasena, Leonard de Zilwa and Tikiri Dissanayake, Lalindra Rodrigo, Jason Jayasekera, Ruwan Suranga, Pradeep Sivakantha, Jiffrey Saheed. CR AND FC - Shantha Rohana, Viraj Prasantha, Lakmal Abeysuriya, Roshan Perera, Sumedha Jayasinghe, Pavithra Fernando, Dinesh Fernando, Savantha de Saram, Champika Nishantha and Charith Kodagoda, Nishantha Kumara, Asanga Rodrigo (Captain), N. Ekanayake, Hamesh Gunaratne, Zulfikar Halimdeen. (R.S.)

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager