St. Anthony’s reign supreme

St. Anthony’s - 32. S. Thomas’ - 0

By Aubrey Kuruppu

The Antonians did what was expected of them as they beat S. Thomas’ Mt. Lavinia by 32 points (2 goals, 3 tries and a penalty) to nil at Nittawela last evening.

It was a solid all round effort by the winners who cut out the frills and went for maximum efficiency to outwit a fairly spirited Thomian team.

Antonian skipper Rankothge is about to take possession of the ball. ( pic by Shane Seneviratne)

Skipper Kusal Rankothge scored two tries in the space of six minutes. The first came off a regulation back division move. His second came when kicked the ball ahead and used his speed to beat the defenders to the ball.

Fly half Wijesiri chipped in with a penalty and then, when he spotted a gap as wide as a barn-door, he scored under the posts for a half time score of 20-0.

Number eight Jayawardena and flanker Ranaweera scored the second half tries.

For the Thomians it was their second loss to a Kandy team in the space of six days. But in this game they showed much more spunk, tackled hard and even came up with some threatening moves. The Livera-Tennekoon halves combination tried hard to ignite the sparks of defiance, Full back Tammanagama was astray with two early kickable penalties.

Referee Orville Fernando was very liberal with the use of the yellow card.

The Antonians thus retained the Fr.Angelo Rosati trophy.

Under 16: St. Anthony’s 13, S.Thomas’ 5.