Royal beat Thomians in first leg

Leslie Fernando

Royal College with superior team work won the 1st leg of the 16th annual Royal and Thomian waterpolo encounter for Dr. R. L. Hayman Trophy defeating S. Thomas’ College by 8 goals to 3 played at the Sugathadasa Stadium pool yesterday.

Royalists showed better handling of the ball, positional play, accurate passing, perfect shooting and swimming faster than their opponents. The winners started off confidently and led 3 goals to 1 in the first quarter.

Second quarter Royal scored 2/1 to lead (5-2) the third quarter saw Thomians take 1/0. The scores 5-3 in favour of Royal and the final quarter Royal added 3/0 to make 8/3.

The goal setters for Royal were national players Bilal Hassan (4), Zaman Ali Yakoob (3), Yashas Abeyratne (1).

In the under-15 encounter S. Thomas’ College outplayed Royal by 5 goals to nil in the first leg.

The young Thomians team played a well controlled game to lead in all four quarters 1/0, 1/0, 1/0 and 2/0.

N. A. Fernando scored two goals while D. A. Gunawardena, S. G. Sethunga and T. S. Thamangama scored a goal each.

Johnny Ting and Joseph Chin both FINA referees from Malaysia controlled both matches.

The second leg will be played on Sunday, November 18 at the same venue.