CH home in the nick of time

*CH & FC 32
*Havelocks 22

It was another classic tail of ‘close but no cigar’ for Havelock’s as they played host to CH and FC who stole the victory just in the knick-of-time. CH and FC put 10 points on the board seconds before the final whistle and sealed the deal on a score card that read 32 points (3 goals, 1 try and 2 penalties) to Havelock’s 22 points (1 goal and 5 penalties) at the end in their Caltex segment ‘A’ division one encounter yesterday. CH with this scalp in the bag will now go on to meet the ‘Big Guns’ CR and FC on the 22nd and Kandy SC on the 28th in their second round fixtures.

Havelocks, after their last encounter with Kandy seemed to bring in a little some thing more to their game at the initial stages.
But the visitors drew first blood when their wing three quarter Niroshan Ekanayake ran across to plant the first try which was converted by the fly half Sajith Bandara. The home team managed to put three points on the board in the fifth minute with a penalty taken by Samantha Laxshan comfortably.

Havelock’s game plan forced the visitors to make some clinical errors and capitalized on them putting over two more penalties courtesy S. Laxshan, who didn’t forget to bring his ‘kicking boots’ along with him.

But CH had the upper-hand in the scrums; shoving with a power that proved ‘too hot’ for the home team. CH pushed their way once again this time successfully for a try by second rower Lakala Peruma and also collected a penalty kicked over by the boot of S. Bandara to widen the lead by 06 points. The score at lemons read CH 15 points to Havelocks’ 9 points.The second half saw a different CH side take the filed; they didn’t seem to have the stamina to last the remaining forty minutes. Thus the visitors committed many judgmental errors, helping the home boys narrow the gap with two more penalties, bringing the score to 15 all.
But the crafty little CH scrum half Roy Nishantha making some innovative moves on the blind side managed to sneak one past the Havelock line and over the try line which resulted in a conversion and thus a goal.

Despite the Havelock hooker Rajive Perera kicking a fallen CH player in the groin area going unnoticed by the referee D. Nimal or his assistants, the referee did get it right when he awarded the home boys a penalty try in the thirty fifth minute which was converted by S. Laxshan, bringing the score to 22 all.

But the boys from Maitland Crescent had other plans it seemed, as they with only minutes to the long whistle went over for a very impressive try when A. Nadisha planted one right under the posts for S. Bandara to complete the effort with the conversion.

Then they mounted more pressure on the home team and finally crowned it with a penalty. This brought them ten more points on the board in the final minutes and the Havelocks had no answers.