Navy-Police game - the pick of the matches

Ranjeeva Seneviratne

The confrontation between the unbeaten Navy Sports Club and the strong Sri Lanka Police on July 1 (Friday) at Welisara is the pick of this week's matches of the Caltex 'A' Division League Rugby Tournament.

The sailors came back storming in the second half to overcome a gallant CH and FC outfit by 24-18 after being led 8-13 at the breather while the Policemen went down fighting to mighty Kandy SC by 11-22 with the scores reading 12-11 in favour of the defending champions till ten minutes before the final whistle.

Up front a terrific tussle for supremacy can be expected with the Navy 'eight' outplaying their counterparts in most of the matches. Skipper Yoshitha Rajapaksa has been a source of inspiration to his teammates with his fiery loose play and has been ably supported by Sathya Ranatunga, Piumal Manchanayake, Kalana Amarasinghe, Sumedha Malewana and Namal Rajapaksa. But they will come up with equally good forwards in Police's Nishantha Welagedera, Sivadasan, Malith Hettiarachchi, Romesh Archarige, Gemunu Indrachapa and skipper T D Seneviratne being outstanding.

However, the sailors boast of a superior back division. The halves combination of Pushpakumara and Dev Anand have functioned smoothly with Dilip Methruwan, Kosala Tissera, Chula Susantha and Niranjan Wickramaratne slicing through the opponents defence with their daring runs.

On the same day (July 1) CR and FC which scored a hard fought 15-10 win over Havelocks will be looking to notch up their third win for the season when they play host to Sri Lanka Army at Longden Place.

The Red Shirts forwards kept a close check on the Havelocks' foreign duo of Angsta Sae and Atella Uaisele bringing them down with some bone-crunching tackles with skipper Dushanth Lewke, Sharo Fernando, Ishan Noor and Chilanka Samaraweera giving a sterling display.

CR's bold move of shifting Reza Mubarak to the fly half berth paid rich dividends with their 'threes' making several threatening moves with Reza Mubarak, Mushin Faleel and that attacking full back Mohamed Sheriff testing the Havelocks defence to the hilt.

Army despite having the services of four national players - skipper Asanka Perera, Saliya Handapangoda, Nushal Meepage and veteran Kapila Knowlton have failed to impress losing all four games played so far and should give a much better display if they hope to contain the Red Shirts on Friday.