Kandy Sports Club reign supreme

Ranjeeva SENEVIRATNE

Kandy Sports Club came up with a stupendous performance to score a smashing 21-nil win over CR and FC in the final to clinch club rugby’s richest prize - the Clifford Cup for the 14th time since winning it for the first time in 1992.

The win also gave them the Rugby Triple for the second consecutive year having earlier bagged the Dialog Professional Sevens Title and Caltex ‘A’ Division League Rugby Title.

On their way to the finals the lads from Kandy crushed Galle RFC by 145 points to nil and then beat the strong Police team by the staggering margin of 79 points to 3.

Kandy’s forwards gave a power-packed display throughout the season to outplay their counterparts in most of the matches. Skipper Sean Wijesinghe was a source of inspiration to his team-mates with his fiery loose play.

He was ably supported by his team-mates Kishore Jehan, Anuranga Walpola, Jeewa Galgamuwa, Sumedha Jayasinghe, Zaffer Jahn, Imran Bisthamin and Dilip Selvam. They won an abundance of possession due to the slick hooking of Anuranga Walpola and the excellent line out jumping of Zaffer Jahn, Sumedha Jayasinghe and Imran Bisthamin who towered above the rest.

The Sri Lanka halves combination of Saliya Kumara and Fazil Marija hit it off smoothly throughout the season. Saliya Kumara had a marvellous season. He dished out some clean passes to fly half Marija while his sudden breaks from the base of the scrum had the opponents defence in disarray. His accurate place kicking too contributed immensely to his team’s success. Marija in addition to setting his threes in motion at every turn made some daring breaks which caught the opponents defence napping. Fittingly Saliya Kumara was adjudged the most outstanding player in the final.

Centres Gayan Weeraratne and Pradeep Liyanage breached the opponents’ defence time and again with their probing runs and also kept their opposite numbers in check with some resolute tackling. But the man who stole the limelight was winger Sanjeewa Jayasinghe with his powerful runs down the flank. He scored a record 28 tries in the Caltex ‘A’ Division League and Clifford Cup.

Perhaps his best performance came in the return match against Police at Police Park when he scored two scintillating tries during the last five minutes to give them a face-saving 29-11 win after trailing 8-11 till midway in the second half.

Sri Lanka full back Radhika Hettiarachchi too played a major role in their success. He was a tower of strength with his safe collections and booming kicks to touch and often joined the line to form the overlap and scored more than 15 tries during the season.

They owe their success to their South African coach Johann Taylor who took great pains to mould them into a champion outfit.