Rajans and Trinity remain unbeaten

Thushan Jayasuriya

Dharmaraja College and Trinity College kept their unbeaten record intact in the Singer league under 20 ‘A’ division rugby tournament by overcoming Wesley College 36 - 24 and St.Anthony's Katugastota(22 - 14) respectively. The matches were worked off during the weekends.

The Rajans made maximum use out of their possession by running the ball at every opportunity. By half time 17 - 05 strong lead against Wesleyites and crossed the wesley goal line on five occassions. Once again it was fullback Thilina Wijesinghe who had another fine outing contributing 21 points with his personal tally scoring two tries putting over one penalty and making four conversions.

Skipper Rochana Hettiarachchi also had another excellent game by slicing through the Wesley defence on a few occassions and feeding his three quarters at every occassion.

The Wesleyites fought back midway in the second half when they scored three tries within 15 minutes through Gavin Siegertsz, Sithum Perera and Ishaq Jurangpathy. But the Rajans put the issue beyond doubt in the last five minutes when centre Buwaneka Udangamuwa scored a try.

Trinity in great come-back

Trinity College Kandy fought back gallantly in the last 20 minutes to beat a fighting Antonian outfit by 22 - 14 at Pallekele on Saturday.

It was Antonians who dominated the game for major part and were firmly placed for victory but the determined Trinity fightback saw them emerge victorious. Antonians opened scoring through two penalties by fullback Sujith Hemantha in the first half and then the experienced number eight Pandula Angammana crashed through for a try to give the Antonians a 11 - nil lead at the breather.

Soon after resumption, the lads from Katugastota went ahead further when Sujith Hemantha made no mistake with a 25 metre penalty. Then in the last 20 minutes came the typical Trinity fight-back. First, prop forward Anuradha Karunatilleke crashed through for a try off a shorttap.

Then the talented fly half Tharinda Ratwatte made a blazing run to score under the post and converted it himself to reduce the deficit to two points (Trinity 12 - 14). Then in the last 10 minutes, the lions sealed the game with two fine tries by Dureka Aluvihare who scored off a short tap and Winger Lakwin Gunasekara who scored by the corner flag to give the Trinitians a superb win by 22 - 14 which was a great comeback.

Royal unimpressive win.

Royal College Colombo scored an unimpressive 14 - 7 win over a fighting Josephian outfit at Royal Sports Complex on Saturday. The formidable Royal forwards could not dominate in the loose and were given a torrid time by the Josephian “eight” with players of the calibre of skipper Jason Melder, Stefan Gregory, Thariq Salih, Sheran Johnson, Minura Randula and S.Udumalagala giving a terrific display to match up to the powerful Royal forwards - Shuaib Jabbar, Shahid Haniffa, Yasuon Weerasuriya, Pasindu Perera, Keshan Peiris and Shuayb Mutaliph.

Although the Reid Avenue School won a major share of the possession through the slick hooking of Shuaib Jabbar in the set scrums and the fine jumping of Dineth Karunaratne and Yasuon Weerasuriya the Royal threes could not make much headway with fly half Rimzi Jamaldeen waste in possession by kicking ahead frequently instead of working his threes. Jamaldeen also missed an easy penalty midway in the first half.

The Josephians fought back in the last 15 minutes to exploit Royal's lack of fitness and defence lapses by the three quarters to score a try. But Royal came back in the last five minutes when Rimzi Jamaldeen put over two easy 20 metre penalties to give Royal a 14 - 7 win.

Last minute try gives Peterites victory

Peterite flanker Nishon Perera gave St.Peter's College a controversial 29 - 23 win over a gallant Science College outfit at Bambalapitiya on Saturday. It was a sensational ending to the match with the Science College alleging that they were denied victory as Refree Gamini Indrasena had played the game eight minutes more than the normal playing time.

It was Science College who dominated the game most of the time. They scored a try by outstanding centre Chathura Gomes early in the first half and made it 10 - 0. Then experienced Number Eight Richard Dharmapala scored another unconverted try.A penalty each by Peterite Jerome Canute and Science's Chathura de Costa made it 13 - 3 at lemons.

The Peterites reduced the lead early in the second half, when flanker Nishon Perera fell over for an unconverted try to reduce the deficit. Within a few minutes, Science went ahead further when Yasindu Ishan scored near the post to give Chathura Gomes an easy kick at goal to give Science a comfortable 22 - 8 lead.

But the Peterites fought back and within five minutes, they scored twice through centre Dilanka Perera and winger Praveen de Silva with Jerome Canute adding the extra points to both tries which saw the Peterites snatch the lead 22 - 20.However Science grabbed the lead again when Chathura Gomes put over a penalty from a difficult angle to make it 23 - 22 in favour of Science.

Then came the controversial end to the game with flanker Nishon Perera scoring a try for St.Peter's with Jerome Canute converting to make it 29 - 23 at the final whistle.