One-way traffic at Havelock Park; ‘Thora’ copped
Royal College lads stole the show by recording a staggering win over S. Thomas’ College with the scoreboard reading a huge 52-0 at the end of a one-way traffic Singer School Under-20 Division I ‘A’ game at Havelock Park yesterday. Royal outplayed Thora with a spree of eight tries and six conversions while keeping their opponents at bay.
Royal skipper Bhanuka Gamage goes for a try - Pic by Amila Gamage
The Michael Gunaratne Trophy encounter, which is one of the most looked forward to confrontations in the schools rugby calendar and played between two of Colombo’s fiercest arch rivals. But to all those present and especially to the Thomian fans it was quite a disappointing showcase of rugby. It was a cakewalk for the boys in Blue and Gold who roughly scored every ten minutes or so, thereby destroying the Thomian defence and spirit to pieces.
The young team from Mt. Lavinia proved to be inexperienced and lacked agility or technical skill to even compete at the same level as the powerful and tactful Reid Avenue machine, who remain unbeaten this season so far. But it is worth mentioning the play of the Thomian scrumhalf Senal de Silva and the centre Ishaaq Jurangpathy who valiantly fought for their team throughout.
Royalists drew first blood at the ninth minute through their skillful seasoned captain Bhanuka Gamage who pushed through the Thomian defence to plant the first try near the right corner flag. He went on to add another try later on in the first half. Not much was conjured by the Thomians in the first half and they let the Royalists crash through twice more before the whistle was blown. The scorers were flanker Shaukath Lahir and their vice captain Pasindu Amarasinghe. Royal could have further added points on the board but squandered numerous opportunities in the opposition’s 22 metre. At the breather Royal was leading 24-0 with two goals and two tries but Royal showed no sign of stopping there and continued with their show of aggression by exerting pressure on the already failing Thomian defence.
It was Royals superstar No.8 Supun Warnakulasuriya who also switches to hooker at times, the catalyst of Royals infamous rolling maul that broke through and scored at the 50th minute, further crushing the Thomians dreams of redeeming themselves. His quick No.8 breaks resulted in him scoring two more tries proving to be Royals greatest asset this season. Soon afterwards the Royal flanker Shaukath Lahir went over the try-line to add five more points to the board.
At the 63rd minute a Thomian centre was sent off to the sin-bin due to unwarranted foul play and Royal capitalized on this opportunity and went over to score their seventh try for the game through their centre Akash Iddawela.
The magical boots of the Royal fullback Ovin Askey contributed 12 points to the tally. He had a superb game not only helping with the kicks but producing a few good breaks and runs of star class quality. During the last few minutes of the game the Thomians pushed past the tired Royalists and were camping in the Royal’s 22 metre line and was threatening to score a try but the whistle was blown and the Michael Gunaratne Trophy went back to the office of Mr. Upali Gunasekara, the Principal of Royal College. Aruna Rankothge controlled the game.