Trinity’s late rally rattles St. Joseph’s
Trinity’s back to back tries in the final five minutes of play rattled St. Joseph’s who went down to the Lions by 12 points with the final score ending in favour of Trinity with the score line of 36 points to 24 points in the Singer Under-20 Schools Rugby League encounter played at Longdon Place yesterday.
Trinity having taken a 12-7 lead at the breather accumulated their points through four goals a try and a penalty as against to the three goals and a penalty scored by St. Joseph’s.
The two sides were well balanced and it were the Josephians who drew first blood midway in the first half through an under the posts try scored by prop forward Sarana Chamikara and full back Shamilka Kurumbalapitiya making no mistake with the conversion. Trinity undeterred made their presence felt as they gave the Josephians some torrid times before succeeding to penetrate their defense which ended with second row Ryan Weerakoon going over for a try which was converted to level the scores at seven each.
Trinity inspired by that try continued to torment their opponents as they took things under control. Ten minutes before the short whistle Trinity surged ahead with a right corner flag unconverted try posted by winger Ayesha Edirisinghe. From there on the two sides exchanged honours and with no further scoring to be done the Trinitians led 12-7 at the lemons.
On resumption Trinity increased their lead in the fifth minute from a penalty booted over by full back Saneshka Abeywickrama and eight minutes later Kurumbalapitiya booted over a penalty for the Josephians. But even then they trailed by five points 10-15. The Josephians got their act together and combined with effect to take over the lead as they posted two tries within a space of three minutes with the first coming from winger Suneth Chathuranga and the other by scrum half Vimukthi Rahula and with Kurumbalapitiya successfully converting both of them the Josephians was sitting pretty with the score on 24-15.
However the Trinitians in a do or die effort had the Josephians under tremendous pressure. Prop forward Shalendra helped the Lions to reduce the deficit when he barges his way through for a try off a five metre scrum while Lashen Wijesuriya added the extra points.
With just under ten minutes of play left the Trinitians made sporadic moves which rattled the Josephian defense and ended up scoring back to back tries within a space of five minutes.
Winger Diluksha Dange went over for the first try while scrum half Anuka Boyagoda scored the second and with the conversions being kicked over by Abeywickrama saw the Trinitians ended the league campaign on a winning note. Referee – Irshad Cader