Thora in the nick of time

There some moments of your life that will keep haunting you for the rest of your life. The Isipatana place kicker Dinusha Chathuranga must be pondering how that easy kick was not spot on. Had that been done they could have drawn level at 17 all and gone home light heartedly. In short yesterday’s story is that centre W.U.D. Fonseka’s final second heroic was all in vain as the Thomians sighed a breath of relief to see them win the game at 17 points ( a goal and two tries) to 15 points ( a drop goal, a goal and a try) at Mt. Lavinia yesterday.

At half time S. Thomas’ were sitting pretty with a 12-0 lead. The game had its interesting points with the Thomian pack calling the trumps while the Isipatana outfit made their follies through bad handling and poor co-ordination. More than once the Isipatana winger Vishvamithra Jayasinghe showed glimpses of versatility down the flank, but, the rest of the flock seemed to have hardly noticed it.

Thomians put their first score on the board through their reliable second row forward barged over mid-right plant an unconverted try to send them 5 up. It took them another fifteen minutes to added on. This time they did it through skipper and No 8 Rohitha Rajapakse who gave the finishing touches to a forwards rush.

Centre Arjuna Manoharan was right with his conversion this time and the home team now enjoyed a lead of 12-0. The change over was called by referee Pradeep Fernando at this juncture. Ten minutes into the second half Thomians forged further ahead with a Niluka Wickrematilleke try which also went unconverted, but it seemed that they were well on their way.

However a while later the Isipatana centre three quarter dropped a kick over the cross bar from mid right from thirty metres out to reduce the defecit to 3-17.

Spurred by this Isipatana went into action and this time Damith Udayanga sliced through the entire Thomian defence to fall by the posts to which Dinusha Chathuranga added the extra points. Now very much closer the board read a tentative 10-17, but still in favour of the home team. The minutes ticking by and the man with the whistle looking at his stop watch Fonseka crossed the Thomian line, but, as the conversion failed the long whistle was blown and Patana had added another defeat on to their report card.

Under 12 STC
bt Isipatana 19-5
Under 14 Isipatana
bt S. Thomas 21-0
Under 16 S. Thomas
bt Isipatana 27-5

At Reid Avenue Royal too pulled off a surprise 25 points ( 5 tries) to 12 points (1g 1t) win over St. Anthony’s Katugastota after leading 10-5 at half time.

At Longden Place CR and FC beat CH and FC by a huge margin of 44 points to 8 points.