Marvellous display by CR and FC

The Ceylonese Rugby and Football Club came up with a stupendous performance to crush arch rivals Havelocks Sports Club by the staggering margin of 62 points to 7 in their Caltex 'A' Division league rugby match at Longden Place on Friday.

It was a marvellous display by the Red Shirts. Their forwards gave a terrific display in the loose to completely outplay their counterparts. Skipper Pavithra Fernando proved to be a source of inspiration to his team-mates with his tireless loose play and with Viraj Prasantha, Danushka Boteju, Anuradha Dharmatilleke, Anuranga Walpola and Ashen Karthelis also giving of their best the Red Shirts 'eight' maintained their supremacy in the loose.

They also won a large share of possession with veteran hooker Viraj Prasantha and his replacement Anuja Perera getting the better of their vis-a-vis Rajiv Perera in the set scrums and the duo of Dharmatilleke and Karthelis holding sway in the line-outs.

The three-quarters also made maximum use of the 'good ball' that came their way by running the ball at every opportunity. Fly-half Asanga Rodrigo, centres Mohamed Sheriff, Asantha Hettiarachchi and winger Dinesh Kumara gave a dazzling display with some daring runs.

The youthful Havelocks outfit managed to contain CR to a 22-7 lead at the breather but cracked up in the second half which saw the Red Shirts pile up 40 more points.

The Red Shirts made a bold decision at the breather by shifting Asanga Rodrigo to the fly-half berth and bringing in former Police, Army and Sri Lanka scrum-half Naufer Rahim to operate from the base of the scrum which paid rich dividends. The 62-7 win by the Longden Place Club is the second highest score in a CR-Havelocks encounter surpassing the previous second highest of 57-3 by the Red Shirts under the leadership of Viraj Prasantha at Havelock Park in 1996.

Kandy SC-Army

Defending champions Kandy Sports Club which came out for the first time this season failed to live up to expectations notching up an unimpressive 23-9 win over a gallant Army outfit on Saturday at Havelock Park.

Kandy SC playing sans four regulars - scrum-half Amjad Buksh, fly-half Fazil Marija, centre Pradeep Liyanage and No. 8 Dushanth Lewke were contained to a 8-3 lead at the breather but came back storming midway in the second half to score two tries within three minutes to win convincingly.

Kandy's new fly-half Nilfer Ibrahim failed to send out the ball in time to his centres Mallikarachchi and Vithanage who were at the receiving end of some bone-crunching tackling by their opposite numbers thus crippling their three quarter-moves. But whenever he got the ball winger Sanjeeva Jayasinghe stood out with his power-packed runs down the flank and was rewarded with two tries.

Up front Kandy's Sean Wijesinghe, Galgamuwa, Kapila Silva, Imran Biathemin and Malith Silva gave a fiery display in the loose to prevail over their counterparts.

Although enjoying a fair amount of possession the soldiers could not make much headway as their three-quarters either 'knocked on' or ran straight into their opposite numbers which resulted in them being unable to breach the Kandy defence.

(R.S.)