Peterite-Royal clash - pick of the matches

The confrontation between the high-riding St. Peter's College and Royal College at the Royal Sports Complex on May 22 (Saturday) is the pick of this week's matches of the Singer under 20 division one league tournament.

The Peterites who are enjoying a marvellous season have notched up four smashing wins over Isipatana (27-8), Trinity (31-10), Prince of Wales (164-0) and Dharmaraja (58-0) and will go all out to topple Royal and make it five-in-a-row. Royal have overcome Prince of Wales (35-6), Wesley (12-0), Dharmaraja (27-5) and St. Anthony's (35-18) but face a tough task against the formidable Peterites.

Up front a close tussle for supremacy can be expected with the marauding Peterite forwards Steve Nelson, Soyuru Anthony, Asitha Ratnayake, Shenal Dias and skipper Keith Gurusinghe being confronted by equally good forwards in Yudith Karunaratne, Iroshan de Alwis, Aadil Jabbar, Lahiru Pavithra and Shehan Pathirana of Royal.

But the Peterites with a superior back division should make maximum use of the 'good ball' which comes their way.

The halves combination of Rizwan Meedin and former Wesleyite Dulaj Perera have hit it off smoothly while Bhanuke Nanayakkara, Danushka Ranjan and Sandun Herath are hard runners who should tear apart the Royal defence.

Royal's three quarters failed to impress in their match against St. Anthony's with poor ball handling and will have to give a much better display if they hope to penetrate the rock hard Peterite defence.

But Royal's biggest problem will be the lack of a reliable place kicker with fly half Arshad Jamaldeen giving a pathetic display of kicking in all the matches.

Incidentally Arshad is the son of Nizam Jamaldeen, one of the best place kickers produced by Sri Lanka.