• Navy stun Kandy while Havies drub Galle RFU
• Sri Lanka soar at world rankings
• Punters' show
• How Susanthika was framed by our AAA
• Vajira wins title after 11 years
• Halahackone plans sand track for Nuwara Eliya
• Trust Fund for Susanthika
• Christ Church bag U17 hockey title
• Captain on the rampage
• Vijaya beaten

Inaugural U 21 knock-out rugby

Navy stun Kandy while Havies drub Galle RFU

Navy playing a rousing brand of rugby football scored a surprising 16 points( one goal, two penalties and a drop goal) to 6 (two penalties) win over fancied Kandy,to turn tables while Havelocks went on a try spree to dump Galle RFU by 69 points( seven goals,and four tries) to nil in their respective quarter final matches of the inaugural Under 21 knock-out rugby tournament worked off at Havelock park last evening.

Thus Navy and Havelocks qualified to play in one of the semis next week.

Navy with superb team work upset the applecart of the hill capital team while their two stars lock Ruwanthileke and fly half Shiyam Pradeep played pivotal roles in helping the sailors to prevail over the KSC.

For the service team Ruwanthileke scored the only try of the game off a forwards rush while stand-off Pradeep kicked two penalties and a peach of a drop goal apart from adding the extra points to the try.

For Kandy Veediya Bandara arrowed two penalties. Meanwhile Havies piled up a cricket score of 69 points over Galle RFU in a badly one sided quarter final fixture also at the park.

For the winners number eight Rajive Ganapathy, and lock Mario Oorloff with a hat trick of tries each led their try harvest while centre B. D. Fernando two tries and scrum half Tarik, flanker Sanjeeve Kulendra and fly half Lakala Perera also had touchdowns.

Lakala Perera converted seven tries.

Today: First quarter final Army vs Old Zahirians at 4 p.m. followed by the second quarter final CR&FC vs CH&FC at 5 p.m. Both games at Havelock Park. - (JK)

Sri Lanka soar at world rankings

By Gamini Perera

Sri Lanka's pleasing performances at the recently concluded Ho Chi Minh City Invitation Football tournament in Vietnam had helped the national team to enhance their position in the FIFA World Ranking.

At the end of August, Sri Lanka had moved up 16 places on the global list.

In the Asian ladder, Sri Lanka had climbed up three places.

With these escalations, Sri Lanka is in the 148th position in the World Ranking list and is occupying the 29th slot in the Asian Ranking.

Maldives (30), Nepal (34) and Pakistan (40) are trailing behind Sri Lanka.

Thailand, China, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Bangladesh are ahead of Sri Lanka.

The above rankings appear in the September 2000 issue of Football Asia, the official magazine of the AFC.

Good performances

Sri Lanka participating in the Vietnam championship held last month did well to hold in the Vietnam national team to a 2-2 draw and went down fighting 1-2 to a professional club from China.

J.S.N. Anandarajah, Vice-President, FFSL and Chairman, international competitions, told the Daily Mirror that Sri Lanka must engage themselves in more and more international friendlies.

"It is no secret that Sri Lanka's ascendancy in the FIFA rankings are due to the untiring efforts and the technical expertise put in by the Brazilian coaches, who are now handling the senior national team," Anandarajah said.

Sri Lanka is expected to participate in the Singapore 'open' later in October 2000.

The national team is now in training for this tournament and are expected to leave to Singapore by the 20th of October.

Japan up to third

Japan has returned to the top 50 in world football are back into the top three in Asia. The Japanese jumped an impressive 11 places after their success in friendly tournaments in Morocco and Japan, with a 2-2 draw against world champions, France and a 4-1 trouncing of Jamaica, boosting their points tally.

At the top, Korean Republic have regained the lead, jumping ahead of last month's leaders, Iran.

Punters' show

Banner headlines were given by all leading newspapers in Australia that XXV11 Olympic Games which concluded last Sunday was the winner.

No doubt it was, but the news which is still the talk of the town is that the real winners were the sports punters.

Australia's leading betting organisations have reported huge profits, mainly by being winners to the surprise losses of swimmers - Ian Thorpe and Susan O'Neil during the first week of competition and the upset win of Komnstantinos Kentris of Greece in the men's 200 metres.

While doping was controlled to a certain extent, the other biggest headache was betting which has entered cricket, football and now to Olympic sports as well, which is not a healthy sign.

Three drug cheats were caught and an Armenian weightlifter was stripped of his bronze medal, which saw an accusation being leveled that the US had secretly cleared two drug cheats with the rich teams having ways and means of doing it. The IAAF is demanding the names of the ten suspected US cheats because they want to know whether they were allowed to participate at the Sydney Olympics.

IOC deputy Chairman Jacques Roge has said those poor countries, which has dominated the Games doping cases had less sophisticated doping systems.

Meanwhile a hero's welcome was given to gymnast Andrea Raducan, whose gold medal was stripped due to doping.

The international body has suspended the Australian Wrestling Union.

Wijan Ponlid the 24-year flyweight boxer from Thailand is to receive 1 million dollars as a gift from Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He has been promised that he will be given gifts of gold from shops in his hometown Sukhothai.

Ethiopia's secret of winning four gold medals in athletics was revealed that they are training at a high altitude, which enabled them to be next to USA in athletic medals.

British boxer Audley Harrison is in for a fortune winning 162 million dollars for his gold medal at the Sydney Olympics.

The focus on the Australians was flawed as many overseas visitors were trying to figure why they gave such a lot of publicity only to Australian athletes.

It was biased reporting on their TV channel all the way with biased reports trying to make it an All Australian Games, which has been graded as a shameful act.

Two African athletes were missing after they failed to board a plane, which delayed the plane's take off for more than an hour.

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