Gallant Havies warriors halt Army mutiny
Pic by Amila Gamage
Havelocks SC set themselves the stage to meet Navy SC in the Dialog Clifford Cup Knockout Rugby Championship semi-finals, after clinically brushing aside Army SC 39-20 in their quarter-final battle played at Police Park yesterday.
After their heartbreaking performance in the League showdown against Kandy last Sunday, where the Havies fell short by three points from a well deserved win, it was visible that the Park Club had done all their homework for the all important battle against the Soldiers.
Havelocks rode the lope, cantered, galloped, and ran beating the Soldiers with a tally of five tries, two conversions, a penalty try and a penalty, while leading the halftime by 19-10. The Soldiers did work hard to create an upset, but eventually they had to bow down from the Knockouts after scoring from three tries, a conversion and a penalty.
The battle was on from the first whistle as Army struck first off fullback Gayan Salinda for a converted try in the sixth minute but Havelocks did not take much time to respond with an equaliser through the combination of front row Dushmantha Priyadarshana and kicker Riza Mubarak. In the 20th minute Havelocks extended their lead after thwarting the attacking Soldiers many a time, when centre Randy Silva found passage to touch down. With Mubarak’s conversion Havies led 14-7.
A similar round of events occurred during the next 16 minutes before scrumhalf Sudam Suriyaraachchi braced for an unconverted try, as Havelocks streamed ahead 19-7. The Soldiers took the halftime break with a successful penalty kick, but still trailing 10-19.
After the turnaround Army were standing across the strong Havies onslaught for nearly 16 minutes, until they were found guilty of foul play, prompting referee Priyantha Gunaratne to award a penalty try. This took the Havies tally to 26-10. Following that came another unconverted try from substitute centre Dinuk Amarasinghe, which further stretched Havies’ lead to 31-10.
With 10 minutes to go, Army found a passage to strike back through Sameera Bulathsinhala and with another addition of a penalty from Havies’ Mubarak the scores changed to 34-15 by fulltime. Both teams added up an unconverted try each during injury time to finish off at 39-20. Havies will take on Navy SC in the semi-final match at the Racecourse on Wednesday.