| Sports |
|
Lanka stun Thailand 51-17
Asian Five Nation Rugby World Qualifier
Division One Third Place play-off |
| Asanka Gammanpila reporting from Dubai |
It was a chapter taken directly from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not when the Sri Lanka rugby team plagued by injuries and not having the best of teams for the contest pulled off a stunning 51-17 win over Thailand in their Asian Five Nation Rugby World Qualifier Division One Third Place play-off worked off at the Sevens Rugby Stadium in Dubai last evening.
It was really a great-hearted second half rally which helped Sri Lanka to gain this unexpected win.
With this victory Sri Lanka will remain in the Division One competition and will hold on to their IRB Ranking of 52 for another year. It was a sad defeat for Thailand, the new comers to the Division One contest.
They will be demoted to Division Two.As the scores indicate, the match was one sided . The young Sri Lanka side played their hearts out. Perhaps deeply rooted in their minds must have been the words that they are a set of no-hopers when the best team failed to take part in the competition due to various problems that arose before the team left, mainly due to a new captain being named in Pavithra Fernando.
Sri Lanka collected their points through 6 goals and three penalties, while Thailand responded with two goals and a penalty
The Sri Lanka forwards and back division combined extremely well. Skipper Pavithra Fernando, number eight Dushantha Lewke, lock forward and outstanding flanker Kasun De Silva proved to be a thorn in the Thai side with his crunching tackles.
The back-line made up of fly-half Lasintha De Costa, centers Ashan de Costa and Niroshan Karunayake, Dinusha Chathuranga hit the gaps with sheer determination to spearhead the team. Full back Reza Mubarak was the play-maker of the side. He converted all six tries and put over three penalties and thus collected 21 points to Sri Lanka’s total.
According to the Sri Lanka coach John Carrignton who was happy with the performances of the side, said that the team had only four training session before the Thailand game and the players had done a great job. The players clicked to perfection in the second half and played without any mistakes.
Speaking to The Sunday Times Carrington said that this result is a positive indication for Sri Lanka’s rugby for the future. “I think this is one of the biggest wins that Sri Lanka has got over a an opposing team in an international field,” he said about the 51-17 win.
SLRFU interim committee chief executive officer and team manager Lasitha Gunarathne said that he was delighted with the result. “If we had brought the original team, I cannot think what the margin of victory would have been,” he beamed. Sri Lanka was without 15 senior players from the original squad.
Thailand led 3-0 in the 17th minute through a 25 meter penalty. Reza Mubarak was on target next with three penalties to put Sri Lanka in the lead (9-3).
But Thailand bounced back with another converted try again and led the game (10-9) before Number eight Dushan Lewke scored a push over try from a five meter scrum to put Sri Lanka in the lead once again at (10-16). This was the score at the short whistle.
Sri Lanka completely dominated the game in the second half with fly-half Ashan de Costa, scrum half Zulki Hameed, hooker Anju Perera and winger Dinesh Kumar and Srinath Suriyabandara scoring the tries to swell Sri Lanka’s score to 51 while Thailand scored 17. |
|
| |
 |
| |
 E-mail |
| |
views[1] |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
