Kandy Sports Club head points table

Ranjeeva Seneviratne

Defending champions Kandy Sports Club propelled by their power-packed forwards scored a resounding 26-12 win over their closest challengers CR and FC on Sunday at Nittawela.

With this victory the lads from Kandy not only made amends for their defeat at the hands of Navy the previous week but also moved upto the top of the points table at the end of the first round matches.

It was Kandy’s forwards who paved the way for this victory. No. 8 Sean Wijesinghe was a source of inspiration to his team-mates with his fiery loose play end was ably supported by Sajith Saranga, Senaka Bandara, Achala Perera, Kishore Jehan and Buddhi Thalagampola as the Kandy’s ‘eight’ reigned supreme in the loose.

Full back Saliya Kumara too had a grand game with his safe collections and booming kicks to touch and also joined the line to form the overlap. He also contributed 11 points with his accurate place kicking firing across two penalties dropping a goal and adding the extra points to the last try.

Skipper Dushanth Lewke, Ashan Karthelis and Ishan Noor gave a sterling display for the Red Shirts but lacked support from the rest of the team-mates.

Losing a major share of possession CR and FC’s ‘threes’ too could not make much headway and CR were kept in the game by full back Reza Mubarak who put over four penalties.

Havelocks Sports Club came up with a gallant display to hold the formidable Sri Lanka Navy to a 24-all draw at Havelock Park on Sunday.

The sailors underestimated their opponents and rested some key players in the first half.

The Park Club gave a fine display in the first half and ran up a commending 21-nil lead by the breather helped by three splendid tries by Sumith Jagoda, Dunstan de Silva and Diren Warnakulasuriya.

But the sailors spearheaded by No. 8 Namal Rajapaksa came back storming in the second half to hold Havelocks to a draw.

Namal led the way by scoring two tries while Duminda Pullikuttiarachchi and Suranga Pushpakumara scored a try each which saw the sailors preserve their unbeaten record.

Navy which is the only unbeaten team in the tournament moved upto second position with 23.50 points from seven outings pushing down CR and FC into third place (23.00 points from seven games).

The Sri Lanka Police continued their winning streak with a 22-14 win over CH and FC on Friday - their third successive victory for the season.

The vastly improved Policemen who started the season with three successive defeats at the hands of CR (18-32), Kandy SC (14-70) and Army (10-12) came up with a grand display to hold the formidable Navy to a 13-all draw in their fourth outing.

Since then the Policemen have been in tremendous form by notching up victories over Havelocks (18-13), Air Force (32-27) and CH and FC (22-14) and should be a force to be reckoned with in the second round.