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Sports

Thomians retain Lady Jayatileke trophy
S.Thomas' 27, St.Joseph's 25
By M. Shamil Amit
S. Thomas' retained the Lady Adlin Jayatileke trophy for the fifth successive year when they scored a thrilling 27 points (one goal, four tries) to 25 (one goal, three tries, one penalty) win over St. Joseph's after being led 12-18 at the short whistle in their annual rugby encounter at Longdon Place yesterday.

The Josephians had to blame themselves as they took things easy in the second half and gave their opponents to take the upper hand during this period. Though they had a six points lead in the first half they failed to take advantage in maintaining it. The Thomians on the other hand played with better understanding in the second half and kept the ball in their opponents territory and succeeded in punching holes in their defence to take over the lead by planting two unconverted tries in succession. With three minutes left for play the Josephians snatched back the lead to make the score read 25-22 in their favour.

But then again they failed to hold on to the lead. The Thomians in a do or die effort took the game with a last minute try to register a thrilling two point victory. But the spectators were given their money's worth with supporters of both sides being kept on their toes as fortunes fluctuated and it was anybody's game till referee Priyantha Gunaratne blew the long whistle.

Skipper and centre Dilon Fox, second row Dilan de Silva, number eight Namal Rajapakse, flanker Ashen Karthelis and prop forward Indika Seneviratne were the try scorers for the winners with scrum half R.L. Jayatissa doing the conversion while skipper and wing forward Dhanushka de Silva, prop forward Chamath Munasinghe and number eight Sachintha de Silva two tries were the scorers for the losers with fly half Dinuka Rajapakse booting the penalty and centre Priyantha Ekanayake making one conversion.

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