Royal wins Lennie Trophy

Richard Dwight

Hockey: Royal defeated Kingswood College 6 goals to 1 in their annual Hockey encounter played at the Matale Astro Turf to win the coveted Lennie De Silva Trophy for the first time since in inaugural year in 2004. Kingswood won the Trophy last year for the first time.

Royal stickers enjoying a very successful year had a slight edge over Kingswoodians who fielded a good side and one of the strongest in the Kandy District.

This encounter has always brought the best out of both teams in the past. The match was played at a furious pace but on this day Royalists played a superior brand of fast open and cohesive Hockey. The halves and the forwards combined well and played with clockwork precision which made the difference between the two teams and paid rich dividends in the end.

Stickers from Royal did well in the first half to commence scoring early through centre forward Marlon Senanayake which was followed by yet another goal that was scooped in by right extreme, Praveen Buddika, Royal’s right inside Falool Hallay had an outstanding game when he scored twice and with Kingswoods left inside H.S. Weragama scoring before half time, Royal led 4-1 at lemons.

The second half belonged to Royal with Fallool scoring again to make it a hat-trick of goals by him and with Royal’s left extreme, Chirantha Wijesinghe, sounding the boards, Royal won 6-1 to win the Lennie de Silva trophy, which was handed over by Rohan de Silva an outstanding hockey player and old boy of kingswood.