Science in inspiring win over Pathana
View(s):By Vimal Perera
Giant killers Science College scored an inspiring 25-16 win in against defending champions Isipathana College who suffered their fourth straight defeat in the Singer Under-20 Schools League rugby match played at Mt. Lavinia yesterday. Following two rousing wins in the ongoing schools league competition Science thumped over last year’s double winners with a courageous display. After their continuous awful performances, Isipathana remain winless following their fourth defeat in-a-row.
Science who dominated from the first whistle led 14-3 at halftime and went on to score from three tries, two conversions and two penalties as Isipathana saved their grace from a converted try and three penalties.
Isipathana failed to impress against Science too. - Pic by Amila Gamage
In the encounter which brought their first-ever win against Isipathana, Science were four men less from their full strength side as they played a game that was the trademark of their opponents. Thus they went on to prove to be efficient by using the very same tactics of their one-time inspirers in school rugby.
But the home team took some time to adjust themselves as a unit before becoming a full force. From Isipathana’s perspective one of their players were sin-binned in the 12th minute as their third row made great attempts to inspire the rest of his team mates without much success.
Science started to move the scoreboard in the 23rd minute by pushing a scrum to score from H.T. Thilanka as I. Karunathilake added the extra points. Two minutes later skipper Richard Dharmapala made a blazing run to score under the post as Karunathilake repeated his success with his kicking.
With 14 points on the board Science led at halftime as Hirantha Perera gave three points in favour of Isipathana off a penalty. After the turnaround Perera added three more points for Isipathana before Science was reduced to 12-men following sin-bins.
After a brief silence both teams added three points each from penalties with Karunathilake and Perera doing their share of duty perfectly. But Isipathana failed to capitalise from the situation and conceded three more points to Science’s tally as Karunathilake’s boots did the talking.
As the game neared the end Isipathana made inroads and flanker Shenal Deelaka made no mistake to breach the Science defence and touched down as Perera added the extra points to cut down the deficit to 20-16.
With the game coming to an almost end Isipathana was fighting their guts out to make a valiant effort to penetrate the Science territory but the home team put up a gritty performance to steal the ball and put their worries to a halt with a last minute try to finish the game at 25-16 and pulled off a historic win.
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