Royal remain unbeaten

Thushan JAYASURIYA

Defending Champions Royal College , Colombo staved off a strong challenge from St.Peter's College Colombo to emerge victorious by 25 – 21 and keep their unbeaten record intact in their Singer segment one ‘A’ division rugby match played before a large crowd at the Royal Sports Complex on Saturday.

It was the Royal forwards who paved the way for this victory. Prop Eroshan De Alwis was a source of inspiration to his team mates with his fiery loose play ably supported by Shuaib Mutaliph, Yasun Weerasooriya , Andrew Siriwardena, Wasim Bawa and Madusha Kularatne as the Royal “eight” outplyed their counterparts. They also had a major share of possession in the set scrums with Mutaliph getting the better of his counterpart Abeysekara while the Royal duo of Wasim Bawa and Andrew Siriwardena held sway in the line outs .

Although winning possession in abundance, the Royal threes could not make much headway as a half-fit Arshad Jamaldeen was occupying the fly half berth and they did not work the line often and opted to keep play with the forwards.

The Royalists could have won the game by a bigger margin if not for the poor kicking of Rimzi Jamaldeen who seemed to have left his kicking boots at home. He missed three conversions and a sitter of a penalty from 25 metres just before half time The Peterite threes always looked dangerous when in possession particularly centres Dulaj Perera, Dilanka Perera and Banuka Peiris all three of whom scored a try each for the Bambalapitiya school and always tested the Royal defence to the hilt. The Reid Avenue school scored their tries through lock forward Wasim Bawa (two) , centre Damian Ratwatte(one) and Prop Eroshan De Alwis (one) with Rimzi Jamaldeen converting only onr try and putting over a penalty.

Trinity College warmed up for this week's Bradby Shield match with a superb second half rally to beat Kingswood College by 30 – 24 after trailing 7 – 17 at half time to remain in third position in the points table.

Winger Dharshana Udalagama who had a fine game scored two tries while scrum half Halique Wadood(one) and No 8 Ryle Madena(one) scored a try each with fly half Tharinda Ratwatte adding the extra points to two tries and firing across two penalties to give the Lions their sixth win for the season

The vastly improved Isipatana scored another smashing win over St.Anthony's College Kandy by 61 – 12 at Longden Place on friday. Winger Uditha Premathilake had a fine outing touching down on three occassions while Kushan Silva(one), Ganidu Weerasinghe( one), Kavindu Costa (one), Hasitha Premaratne(one) and Sudham Sooriyaarachchi(one) scored a try each. With Hirantha Perera converting three and Kavindu Costa (one) .