Royal-Thomian hockey match ends in a draw

Mevan Banagala

The 10th annual Royal-Thomian hockey encounter for the Orville Abeynayake trophy took place at the Royal College grounds on Sunday. After a hard fought game, the match ended in a one-all draw, as bad light prevented play during the second half of extra time which followed the two main halves.

At half time there was no scoring. The second half started off on a nice pace as the Royalists took the offensive, but a continuous Thomian defence foiled them for a few minutes.

However Royal College managed to penetrate the Thomian defence as S. Jayawardane scored to the delight of the Royal fans. With ten minutes to go the Thomians powered a nice wing play pioneered by D. Wijewardane to score a late goal, thereby drawing the match.

The match continued into extra time where the Thomians played an aggresive game, but in the first half of extra time both teams failed to score. Just as the second half of extra time was about to be played the Thomians and Royalists agreed to end the match due to bad light and the match ended in a one-all draw.