Royal seeking to clinch the double after 27 years
Royal the newly crowned kings of schools rugby will be seeking to clinch the double by bagging the Milo President’s Trophy knockout title when the schools knock-out tournament gets underway this evening at the Royal Sports Complex. The unbeaten Royalists who won ten matches on the trot which includes the two legs of their Bradby Shield clash against Trinity has got an opportunity of achieving the feat which they last did in 1988 under burly by Lasitha Gunaratne.
Norman Kannagara, Asst Vice President Beverages, Nestle Lanka Ltd handing over the glittering Milo President’s Trophy to Ranjith Chandrasekera, President of the SLSRFA.
They come out as the hot favourites after the superlative performance in the league championship under the guidance of Coach Sanath Martis who was optimistic and confident that the boys are capable of achieving it. Martis added “We will go all out to clinch the knockout title. Already we have the league title in the bag. Besides we also have the Bradby Shield which has come back to the Royal cupboard after a lapse of four years.
“In fact that was our first hurdle to clear and then our aim was the league title which we planned by playing positive rugby and the boy’s contributed a hundred per cent so most probably we might change our playing style in this tournament”. The tournament conducted by the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Association and sponsored by Nestle Lanka Ltd for the 21st year will see only six teams in the fray.
St. Joseph’s, Wesley and Kingswood pulled out due to unavoidable circumstances and the six schools involved comprise league champions Royal, Isipathana, Trinity, Science, St. Peter’s and DS Senanayake Vidyalaya coming in. The Josephians pulled out due to their players being injured and likewise it’s same with S. Thomas’ and Kingswood being unable to field a team also due to injuries to their players.
League champs Royal and runner up Isipathana have received byes and the first quarter-final between Science and St. Peter’s is scheduled to be played today and the second between Trinity and DSS will be played on June 29. In the first match Science should prevail against St. Peter’s due to the fact that when the two teams played their second round game last week the Science side came out easy winners by 34 points to three.
So the Mt. Lavinia boys should have little difficulty in performing a repeat of that game and go through to the semi-finals where they will meet league champions Royal. The second quarter-final should see Trinity getting the better of DSS who finished second in Plate Championship. The winner of this match will meet Isipathana in the semi-final which is going to be a tough one.
Apart from this the lower division schools will contest for the Premier Trophy and Chairman’s Trophy with both the tournaments due to be worked off from June 29 onwards.
Eight teams each will contest in the Premier Trophy and Chairman’s Trophy tournament. The teams in the Premier Trophy are Piliyandala Central, St. Benedict’s, Vidyartha, Lalith Athulathmudali MV, Mahanama, Ananda Nalanda and St. Sylvester’s.
The eight teams vying for the Chairman’s Trophy are Bandaranayake MMV Gampaha, President’s Maharagama, St Thomas Matale, Dharmapala, Veluwana MV, Vidura Nawala, Carey and Vidyaloka Galle.
Chairman’s Trophy schedule: June 29 – 10.30a.m. – Bandaranayake MV vs Dharmapala and 1.30p.m. – St. Thomas Matale vs President’s Maharagama. June 30 – 10.30a.m. – Carey vs Vidyaloka MV Galle and 1.30p.m. – Veluwana MV vs Vidura Nawala. All these matches will be played at Sugathadasa Stadium.
Premier Trophy schedule: June 29 – 2.45p.m. – Lalith Athulathmudali MV vs St. Benedict’s and 4.30p.m. – Piliyandala Central vs Nalanda. June 30 – 2.45p.m. – Ananda vs St. Sylvester’s and 4.30p.m. – Vidyartha vs Mahanama. All these matches will be played at Longdon Place.
The semi-finals of the Chairman’s Trophy will be played on July 7 from 10.30a.m. onwards while the Premier Trophy semi finals will be played from 2.45 p.m. onwards. All these matches will be played at Longdon Place.The semi-finals of the President’s Trophy will be played on July 4 and 5 and the final on July 12 at Royal Sports Complex ground.
The finals of the Premier and Chairman’s Trophy tournament are scheduled to be played on July 13 at the Royal Sports Complex ground from 2.45p.m. onwards. Isipathana has won the knockout title on six occasions (1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2012 and 2014), St. Peter’s has won five times (1995, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010 joint champs with Royal) while Kingswood has won four times (2000, 2003, 2004, and 2005) and Royal two (2002 and 2010 joint champs with St. Peter’s).
Four teams have won it once Thurstan (1998), S. Thomas’ (2009), Trinity (2011) and Wesley (2013).