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points scored by a team in the first leg At "Lemons" the winners led 29-3. Royal's speedy three quarters combined well with their mobile set of forwards and ran circles round the Trinity side who seemed to have forgotten their basics. The Reid Avenue boys looked very dangerous in attack splitting the weaker Trinity defence open on so many occasions. They exposed a number of chinks in Trinitians armoury. The 2003 league champions completely dominated the rucks, mauls and scrums and repeatedly punched holes through the flimsy defence and came up with some crunching tackles which kept the Trinitians dumb struck. The high ball collection and scruming were the main concerns for the "Lions" who gave away more than seven penalties due to this deficiency. The margin of victory would have been even greater, closer to a century had the Royal backs not squandered at least two try scoring opportunities. The Trinitians will have go back to the drawing boards once again if they are to have any chance in the second leg. They just looked very slow and lethargic in their approach and nothing went right for them yesterday. Their scrum half Y. Ching was not as quick and put the three quarters under pressure. Royal drew first blood in the 3rd minute of the game when Shihab Bahudeen put over a penalty spelling out the things to follow when the Trinity pack failed to stay on their feet. But the "Lions " hit back to equalize in the 9th minute courtesy a Isuru Jayasena penalty. As so often before Royal settled, re-grouped and took command of the game to score three tries within a six minute blitz to dash all Trinity hopes. Fayaz Jiffry, Azwer Mansoor, Kasun Wijesekera scored for Royal with national player Shihab Bahudeen striking target with the kicks at goal. Just before the stroke of half time Shihab Bahudeen dashed nearly 40 meters to touch down in a breath-taking three Quarter moveto take Royal to 29-3 at "Lemons". Soon after the turn-around, Trinity reduced the lead through an Isuru Jayasena penalty to make it 29-6. Eight minutes later, Avaiz Rasheed scored an unconverted try (36-6). Though Royal skipper Lakshman Dissanayake was shown the "Yellow Card" for arguing with referee Dilroy Fernando, amd side-lined for tenminutes, and fly-half Varun Wijewardene off the field with a concussion, the Trinitians were ubable to take advantage of the situation. In the dying stages of the game skipper Lakshman Dissanayake now called back to the game put the icing on the cake for Royal when Avaiz Rasheed broke through a gaping hole in the Trinity defence from Royal's own 10 and took the pass from Rasheed to dash nearly 30 meters, brushing past four defenders to score far right. The long-whistle followed shortly thereafter to Trinity's relief for Royal to take the first leg 41-6. Earlier in 2002 Zulki Hameed led the Royalist to a 39-0 win, still the biggest margin of victory in a first-leg Bradby. Dilroy
Fernando controlled the game well. |
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