It doesn’t get much bigger than that
Whoever drew up the schedule of matches has been spot on. Kandy vs Havelocks today at Nittawela, it doesn’t get much bigger than that.
Over the years, it has been Kandy SC that has called the shots and, coming to the last game of the initial round, it has been the Nittawela Club that has been surveying the scene from it’s perch atop the table. Not so this time. A couple of defeats have proved that Kandy is only human, after all. (Humanum est errare goes the Latin tag).
Kandy’s supporters may have feared the worst when the halftime score in the CR match was 22-all. That was the print at which the Kandy team uncorked their brilliance. From then on, there was only one team on the park, for the other was badly organised and lacking strategy.
Both teams employed the punt, as there was space at the back. Kandy did it more successfully and consistently than their opponents. They were a confident lot, and the confidence stemmed, from the fact that they were on home ground. For Kandy’s great good fortune, the ball bounced right. The absence of a second line of defence meant that Kandy’s thrilling back division enjoyed the freedom of the park.
Shaken up by the Navy and bereft of their champion’s glory, Kandy needed this big win. A win by 24 points over one of the elite clubs in the fray would do the champions a power of good. A sobering thought is that today’s opponents are unbeaten, having won all six games and, what is more, have succeeded in pulling the rug from under the feet of the sailors – one of the teams to have toppled the reigning champions.
If big, glamorous names matter all that much, Kandy should win this one comfortably. What Havelocks bring to this engagement is an assemblage of young talent – possibly the heirs to the Marijas and the Ranjans. Team-mates at St. Peter’s, and now at the Club, Kevin Dixon and Nishan Perera have speed, and in the case of the former, the ability to think on his feet and on the wing there is Chamara Dabare.