Royal-Thomian annual hockey clash today

By Richard Dwight

The sixth annual hockey encounter for the Orville Abeynaike Trophy between Royal and S. Thomas', will take place this evening at 4.30 p.m., at the Astro Turf Grounds, Reid Avenue, Colombo 7. The old boys match at 3.30 p.m. will precede the main match.

From its inaugural trophy match S. Thomas' have consecutively won all the encounters for the past five years.

But the Royalists have done well in recent years to narrow down the margin of defeat.

For the reason that in the year 2003 Royal lost by the odd 1 goal to Nil, and last year it lost 3 goals to 2. The difference being a solitary goal, and so a keen tussle will be on today on the Astro Turf. Royal College will be led by G. Dissanayake and S. Thomas' by D.N. Karunaratne.

In the old boys match the two captains are Royal - Manju Guanwardena and S. Thomas' - Mininda Morahela.

The line up for today's main match will be:

S. Thomas' from: D.N. Karunaratne (Capt.), T.P. Edirisinghe, G.N.M. Perera, R.N.A. Gunasekara, A.J.R.E. Isaac, L. Nathieeskumar, T.A. Cassim, A.Y. De Silva, M.N. Ranasinghe, M. Amjad, A.U.B. Kohona, Y. Suganthan.

Royal from: George Dissanayake (Capt.), Hashan Niroshana, Dhanushka Senaratne, Shalitha de Silva, Supun Kulathilaka, Ashane Peiris, Aloka Amarasiri, Suneth Karunathilokaratne, Nalaka Wijekoon, Praveen Buddhika, Marlon Senanayake, Shami Gajanayake.