John Keells in rugby sevens quarters

By Saif Izzadeen

Defending champions John Keells Holdings 'A' qualified for the quarter finals of the 30th Mercantile Rugby Sevens worked off at the Havelocks and CR and FC grounds respectively yesterday.

John Keells with three Sri Lanka players such as Nishantha Chanaka, Lenord de Silva and Sudath Samapath will move in as favourites to win the title for a second successive year. The tournament is sponsored by Ericson Telecommunications.

Quarter final line up - Cup: John Keells Holdings 'A' vs Aitken Spence Blues, Aitken Spence white vs Sampath Bank, Asia Capital vs Access, Hoodwian vs Hatton National Bank A.

Plate - HSBC vs Amana Investments, Tri Star Red vs Expeditators, ASHA Agenciss vs Maritime Holdings, Mercantile Leaseing vs John Keells Holdings 'B'.

Bowl - Mabroc 'B' vs Tri Star Blue, La Kandyan vs HN B B, Media Blacks vs EW Informations, Metropolitan vs Soft Logic.

De La Salle cagers shine

The Under-17 cager team from De La Salle College gave a fine performance to emerge All-island Under-17 "B' Division Runner-up. The above tournament was conducted by Sri Lanka Schools Basketball Association. The matches were played at the A. Ratnayake Central College, Kandy, recently.

Twelve teams participated in the tournament. In the preliminary round De La Salle College and Prince of Wales College performed well and were qualified to play the final.

The final between De La Salle and Prince of Wales, Moratuwa was an interesting match, full of thrills and excitement. Lasallians were led in the first half 36 points to 28 points. However Prince of Wales defeated Lasallians convincingly in the final by 60 points to 56 points.

The Lasallians team was trained by two young coaches Thilina Jayarathna and Tharindu Fernando, the former head prefect of the College. Lasallian Vice captain Lochana Jayasuriya won the Best Defensive Player Award.

Tamil Nadu-Lanka cue series

After a lapse of several years, cue fans of Sri Lanka will have the opportunity of witnessing their counterparts from across the Palk Straits competing in Sri Lanka. The Billiards & Snooker Association of Sri Lanka will be hosting the Tamil Nadu Billiards & Snooker Association team for an Inaugural Test Series to be conducted in Sri Lanka from September 28 up to October 1.

With the introduction of Billiards & Snooker to the Sri Lanka Schools extra-curriculum. The local Association have decided to conduct the Test series in three venues in order to propagate the game to a wide spectrum of cue sports enthusiasts and especially to the school children.

The Test series comprising of three snooker matches, two billiards matches and one double snooker will be inaugurated at the Grand Hotel Nuwara Eliya at 10 a.m. on September 28. The second Test will be played at 2 p.m. on September 29 at the Garden Club, Kandy. The finals of the Test series & awards ceremony along with the awards ceremony for the Sri Lanka Billiards Nationals is tentatively planned for a grand event at the Galle Face Hotel Colombo on October 10.

The Sri Lanka team for the series will be selected from among K.H. Sirisoma, J.A. Wahid, Henry Boteju, K.V.W. Jayasekera & Dr. A.A.T Somaratne for Billiards whilst the Snooker pool will comprise of Susantha Boteju, Mohammed Aslam, Abdul Sattar, B.R. Thillekeratne M.J. Mansoor, P.J. Ameen, Nimal De Silva and Naresh Samarawickrama.

The Tamil Nadu team and delegation will comprise of Syed Habib, Kosaraju Ranjan, Ramanathapuram Ganesh, Prem Prakash, Marudanayagam Jaiganesh, Dwarakadoss, Shashikant, Angu Theagarajan and Rajasekeran Loganathan.

Amrith de Soysa wins main classic

Free Lanka Trading Ltd. specialists in the Wines & Sprits business have been influenced to sponsor golf and with the assistance of their affable executive Joseph Kenney the August medal round took off most successfully ending up in high spirits at close of play.

That little chap Amrith de Soysa was at it again in an exhibition of tremendous stroke play. Outshining formidable opposition from Allain Gyi, C. Thurairajah, Jehan de Saram and Per Wange he completed the Ridgeways with an excellent nett 69 to win the classic and much applause. Allain Gyi came behind with nett 71 followed by Doc Thurairajah on nett 73 . Per Wange a new comer playing off 5 handicap shows promise of the shape of things to come off his club heads.

Excellent Nimal

In the' B' Division Nimal Perera was particularly impressive with a 5 under par nett 66. He has been tenaciously behind nett 65 and he just missed that magical score by one stroke. "I am going for it again and will not rest until I get it", he said with tremendous confidence and a glass of fresh orange in his hand. Perera is in form and he is in the groove striking the ball most effectively. Coming behind him were B.C.Lee and Anel de Silva on net 69 each. The better of the two was De Silva who had the best gross score in the 'B' Division. Elmo de Silva and Neil Chanmugam were quite impressive with nett 70 each followed by S.V.Jayakody, Shirley 'Amsler' de Silva & Lalin ' podgy' Senadhira who had nett par rounds.

A miracle

Sanjiv Wickremanayake caused an absolute miracle with the lowest gross score of 83 in the 'C' Division. His handicap of 28 reduced his nett take home score to 55 and finish a spectacular performance. It was his debut at the Ridgeways which make his performance all the more praiseworthy.

I understand he was quite impressive at the 19th. Singapore returned K.B. Ambanpola came second with a praiseworthy nett 64 and also to carry away the Seniors Award handsomely. Ambanpola will certainly dominate the Seniors. He is a good looking stroke player with much experience. Anil Peiris rushed behind and had to settle on nett 68 and third place. Others who impressed were T Akbarally 69, D Hewawasam 70, Norman Gunewardene 70, C. Jayawardena 71 and S.W.Unamboowe who is the youngest of the crop and from whom much could be expected.

Ahead of the crop was mature senior with a hammer and sickle swing of half an arc Siri de Silva who came down to nett 75 and collected position number 2. Unbelievably 37 out of the 56 participants in the 'C' Division cracked centuries. Some of them in impeccable Sanath style. As for Confetti there was a massive parcel of it made from the score cards of those who brought no returns - A. Mylvaganamm, Tissa Hattotuwa, Bede Anthony, Rohan Fernando and Jerome Rajendran contributing substantially. It was harvest time for the pond boys and they collected a tidy packet each before their journey home.

Senior Weeraratne

Finally I must apologize for forgetting to remember that Frank Weeraratne won the Senior Division last month most comfortably. His old forte of chip and putt came back to him and after a round that gave him much pleasure with no concern for the award he was all smiles most of the early afternoon.

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