Royal clinch Orville Abeynaike Trophy
Royal College, Colombo walked away with the Orville Abeynaike Trophy when they scored a convincing 3-0 victory over their arch rivals S. 
Thomas’ College, Mt. Lavinia in the 15th Annual Royal-Thomian hockey encounter played at the Thomas’ Grounds, Mt. Lavinia, recently.
Royal dominated play in the first half invading the Thomian territory with open and fast hockey. Royal inners and mid fielders combining well a with run and pass game which gave the Thomian defenders a heavy load of work.
In the 14th minute Royal’s No. 7 Thineth Karunaratne sounded the board with a neat field goal beating several Thomian defenders. Time and again the Mt. Lavinia lads organised themselves in attacking the Royal territory but they lacked the finish the Royalists had. At the short whistle Royal led 1-0.
Resuming after lemons Thomians seemed to play in a changed mode and their forwards made some valiant attempts to score but the Reid Avenue lads along with the custodian Sharountha Balenthren sent them back. In the 11th minute after the half-time Royal were awarded a penalty corner to see Royal’s No. 11 Malith Gamage with a strong drive beating the Thomian Goal-Keeper Pasindu Wanigasuriya to make the score 2-0. In the dying stages of the game again off a short penalty corner Royal made the final score 3-0 when No. 5 Neelaka Wedagama scoring to end the game with a clean sweep 3-0 victory. Thomians tried their best to score on several times but had to be on the losing side due to unsettled positioning.
Royal skipper Shanheer Bari led from the front having a hand in every Royal move which found the forwards’ job easy.
Dhammika Abeyratne and D.W. Nalinda controlled the game.
Earlier in the day Nihal Nilaweera Trophy was won by the Old Thomians when they beat Old Royalists 1-0 in the old boys’ encounter. Thomian No. 7 Mohamed Imshad scored the solitary goal of the match with just seven minutes to the long whistle which gave the Old Thomians victory. Abeetha Fernando and H.M.S.K. Ekanayake officiated the match.
Chandra Schaffter, a former Thomian hockey and cricket player, double international in Hockey and Cricket and former National cricket team Manager graced the occasion as chief guest and distributed the awards along with the other distinguished invitees.
L.L.A. Wickremasinghe Trophy for the Best Performer of the Match was awarded to Imad Dole of Royal College. – Lakshman Ranasinghe
Pix by Ranjith Perera