St. Peter’s made to fight hard for win
St. Peter’s underwent some anxious moments and was made to fight hard by traditional rivals St. Joseph’s for their 16-11 win in the second round match of the Singer U-20 Rugby league encounter played at the Havelock Park yesterday.
The Peterites after being led 5-11 at the breather scored 11 points in the second half while the Josephians were unable to add any. The winners made up their points through two tries and two penalties as against to a try and two penalties by the Josephians.
Action at the Joe-Pete Rugby encounter - Pic by Ranjith Perera
This was also the two teams’ annual traditional encounter which is being played for the Rev. Fr. Basil Wirtaunga Memorial Shield which saw the Peterites retain it for the 14th successive year.
The second round games are being played to decide who will be the ultimate schools rugby league champions and even though the Josephians are nowhere near to the title they put in a spirited display.
It was a repeat of their performance against Kingswood last week where they gave the hill capital boys some torrid moments before going down 13-17 in another closely contested game.
St. Joseph’s put up the first scoring as they shocked the favoured St. Peter’s through a try by prop forward Stephan Gregory which initiated off a five metre scrum with the game just eight minutes old.
They continued to dominate the proceedings but lacked the crucial finishing touches of turning it into points. St. Peter’s undeterred made sporadic moves and succeeded in penetrating their opponents’ defence with second center Ramesh Rukmal going over for a left corner unconverted try.
The Josephians was much superior as they continued to torment St. Peter’s defence line. In the melee they succeeded in forcing two penalties which fly half Dulith Fernando made no mistake for them to increase the lead to 11-5 which stood the score at lemons.
The turnaround saw the Peterites going into action and forcing a penalty in the seventh minute with flyhalf Shamri Buhar booting it over with ease. Four minutes later the Josephians missed out an opportunity of increasing their lead when a kickable penalty offered was fluffed. The next scoring came eight minutes later which was by St. Peter’s with their star player and full back Kevin Dixon barging through for a left corner try and with the difficult conversion being missed the Peterites took over the lead 13-11.
Fly half Burah who fluffed a penalty in the 31st minute made amends when he booted over a penalty in the dying stages of the match to further increase his side’s lead which saw them securing a narrow victory and to be in contention for the league title.
Referee: Pradeep Fernando