Right Royal Victory
Yesterday's Royal onslaught will leave Trinity with more questions than answers needing to win the second leg by a 30-point margin - Pic by M.A. Pushpakumara
The first leg of the 76th Bradby Shield encounter was all about balancing brawn, brain and intelligence and hosts Royal College definitely proved they were the superior side after blending all three components, to record a runaway 29-0 win against Trinity College at the Royal Sports Complex yesterday.
After both teams took the field, all fired up, like perfect and well-tuned machines, Royal took the gamble of giving away the first phase of the game mostly defending, but they tactfully and shrewdly took control of the game to complete the onslaught after from four tries, three conversions and a penalty. On their way to record a right Royal victory, the Reid Avenue brigade led at halftime comfortably by 10-0.
Royal displayed the importance of maintaining composure, despite playing with 13 men on two occasions – once at the beginning of the second half, and then towards the final whistle. Trinity, on the other hand, were pumped up soon after the kickoff, thwarting Royal a possible scoring opportunity off their trademark ‘Royal maul’ and then forcing the hosts to commit errors in bulk.
Trinity would have changed the fate of the outcome, had they not taken perfect use of the three penalties that came across, but their overconfident approach, added with miscommunication and misjudgment prevented them from adding early points, at a time when Royal had not even thought of scoring. The penalties they earned, all within the first 15 minute of the game, went down unutilised.
The first, Trinity were confused – instead of kicking the penalty at goal, they tapped to work the line thus handing the ball over to Royal. Then followed a miscued kick by young scrumhalf Anuhas Kodituwakku, and later a simple kick that went astray off the boots of winger Irshad Hamdan. By then Trinity had lost all the penetrating energy while Royal on the other hand, were waiting for the right time to strike. Royal’s resurgence was marked with a simple penalty that was put over by fullback Nabeel Yahiya to give them their first three points, which was also of the game. Then they turned tables entirely, forcing Trinity to defend.
Yet Trinity were effective in countering the ‘Royal maul’, until the hosts took a different move. From their own yards, Royal made use of their three-quarters to play in phases and set pieces until they gained territorial advantage to form a rolling maul and score. The man in form, hooker Dhanuja Samararatne, did the honours in bracing the try, while Yahiya added the extra points, kicking from the far left flank. With this addition in the 25th minute, Royal made use of the remaining time of the first half to bring down Trinity’s momentum, as they led the halftime 10-0.
The second half did not work out as planned for Royal, despite Trinity attempting to cause trouble to their traditional rivals. After spending much of the time in Royal’s 22, Trinity forced Royal to desperately defend, and losing try-scorer Samararatne for not heeding referee Ishanka Abeykoon’s early warning, and centre Philio Calyanaratne for deliberately knocking on the ball in order to gain advantage for yellow card offences, gave the visitors a glimpse of hope of scoring.
But it was the opposite. Instead Royal completely shackled Trinity by following the same strategy and despite playing with just 13 men, they managed to form a rolling maul after their three-quarters, spearheaded by Pasindu Heshan and skipper Kaveen Sasanga initiated a move. Unlike their usual finishes, acting hooker Naveen Perera broke away from the maul to land under the post in the 49th minute. With Yahiya’s conversion Royal expanded their lead to 17-0.
Royal continued their onslaught for the next 10 minutes until Trinity’s fullback Kovida Wickramasinghe was shown a yellow card in the 58th minute. From then onwards Royal gradually took complete control of the game, by forming a penetrative maul as Samararatne, returning after sitting out for 10 minutes earlier, braced his second try. After a failed conversion Royal led 22-0.
Royal accelerated their pace, to gain territory and form rolling mauls whenever they were able, as prop Thineth Gamage crashed through in the 65th minute to touch down. With Yahiya’s conversion, Royal’s score swelled to 29-0, placing Trinity under more pressure ahead of the second leg in two weeks.
Towards the end of the game Royal lost their composure, and were shown two red cards. Calyanaratne was yellow carded on the same offence as earlier, which automatically turned into a red card, while centre Thevindu Saparamadu was red carded for a dangerous tackle on Trinity’s Kodituwakku.
An inquiry will be held this week to determine if Calyanaratne and Saparamadu are eligible to play the second leg on September 3 at Pallekele. Usually, a player is suspended for two games after receiving a red card at official domestic and international games.