Emjay International win Cup Championship

Achala Ramanayeka

Emjay International made it two in a row when they beat John Keells in a thrilling match in extra time by 27 points (a goal and four tries) to 22 (one goal, three tries) in the Cup Championship final at the 39th Mercantile Rugby Sevens 2009 organized by the MRFA which concluded on a high note at the CR & FC grounds yesterday.

The defending champions came in this year as the favourites as they had national players of the calibre of Fazil Marija, Nalaka Weerakkody, Saliya Kumara, Pradeep Liyanage. While the JKH ten times winners had some talented young players like Dushanth Lewke, Dinusha Chathuranga, Suranga Pushpakumara and Srinath Suriyabandara.

As expected the final was a hard fought one but the defending champions showed what they are capable of in the sudden death time by crossing over in the very 1st minute, at the long whistle both teams scored 22 points each after Emjay International led 12-7 at half time.

Emjay International captain Fazil Marja, former Sri Lanka sevens captain Pradeep Liyanage scored two tries each while H.F. Dilaksha scored the winning try in exatra time for the winners.

Nuwan Hettiarachchi, Samantha Lakshan and Srinath Suriyabandara scored the tries for JKH.

Earlier the champions Emjay International beat Commercial Bank in a hard fought game to enter the finals beating them by 14 points to 7 while JKH beat Sampath Bank ‘A’ to enter the finals.

While Emjay International retaining the title for the second successive year, carried away both special awards in the cup category as Pradeep Liyanage being awarded the Pemraj Peiris memorial trophy for the man of the finals and the talented captain Fazil Marija was awarded Mohan Daniel Memorial Challenge trophy for the man of the tournament.

In the Plate finals Janashakthi beat Amana Takaful by 29 points to ‘nil’ after leading 17-0 at half time. The winners collected their points through two goals and three tries.

Earlier the plate champions Janashakthi beat JKH 36 points to ‘nil’ in the semi finals while Amana Takaful was awarded a walk over by MAS ‘A’ Suntel won the bowl championship beating HSBC by 21 points to 5 after leading 7-0 at half time.

The winners scored three goals while HSBC collected their points through a try. In the semi-finals stage Suntel beat Dialog while HSBC beat Hidaramani ‘Mercury’ to make it to the bowl finals.

In the Shield championship Ad Guru the debutants beat the more fancied Softlogic by 33 points to 5 to win the shield after leading 26-0 at half time. Ad Guru scored their points through four goals and a try while Softlogic managed to score a try in reply.

Niranjan Wickramaratne of Janashakthi was adjudged the most promising player in the plate category who carried away the Captain Mathew George memorial challenge trophy while M.N. Ameen of Suntel in the bowl category was named the most up and coming player and Arjun Manoharan of Ad Guru was adjudged the best performer in the Shield category.

The tournament was held for three consecutive days and more than 400 players took part and it was a tremendous success.