Royal retains Corea Cup

Mevan BANAGALA

When it comes down to the Sri Lankan schools hockey sphere there is no more grandeur than the annual JCA Corea trophy played between two of the highest esteemed schools Royal College, Colombo and Trinity College, Kandy. Royal College were the euphoric winners of the JCA Corea Challenge Trophy 2008 when they annihilated Trinity College by three goals to one at the Asgiriya grounds in Kandy last year. The U-17 fixture better known as the Paul Jeyaraj Trophy was too bagged by the Royalists when the young un's thrashed the helpless Kandy regime by five goals to nil. This Year the much coveted trophies were up for grabs in Colombo, as every year the game shifts between Colombo and Kandy displaying the true of the JCA Corea Trophy sportsmanship of these two schools.

The scale was slightly tipped in favour of the Royalists who had a brilliant season to put them in their prime form for this prestigious encounter which was held on the 26th of October, 2009 at the Reid Avenue ground.

Despite it being a brilliant first half for the Trinitians the Royalists managed to snuff it out by scoring a penalty in the second half with a penalty corner in the 42nd minute shot by Mushtaq Rumy. The scorelines read 2-1 at the long whistle. Danuja Gunasekera scored for Royal College as A. Lukman Shah shot in the equalizer for Tinity.

The game was refereed by M. Naushad and Ajit Jayasena whilst T. Satishkumar was third umpire.

The Paul Jeyaraj Trophy was not played this year. However it remains with Royal College, as they won the last years fixture.

It was truly remarkable to experience the two great schools fight it out for supremacy and loyalty towards their alma mater. No matter what the result was it is sure that Both these two gifted individuals hailing from the best of Colombo and Kandy schools would be happy at the sight of brilliant sportsmanship and excellent display of hockey that does great honour to Sri Lanka.