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Kandy winger Sanjeeva Jayasing tries to make a break but he is held back by a Army defender.
Pic by Ranjith Perera |
Six minutes in the second half is all it took for Kandy to turn what could have been a close game in to a rout.
Three tries including two by veteran wing three quarter Sanjeewa Jayasinghe enabled the defending champions to thrash Army by 42 points (two goals, five tries and one penalty) to 11 (one try and two penalties) at Longden Place and in the process Kandy retained the Caltex League Trophy for the ninth year in a row yesterday.
Stung by their defeat to Navy last week, Kandy opened the game in turbo gear. Just minutes had gone when stand off Faazil Marija sliced through Army’s defense before off loading to Jayasinghe for a simple try. Saliya Kumara who had been switched to full back in place of the injured Radhika Hettiarachchi, fluffed the conversion.
Army hit back almost from the restart with skipper and prop R.N. Mepage touching down, stand off Kapila Knowlton uncharacteristically fluffed the conversion, but put over a penalty later in the first half.
A brilliant try by Marija and a penalty conversion by Kumara gave Kandy 13 points to 8 lead at lemons.
Kandy’s skipper and centre Pradeep Liyanage started padlocking the game early in the second half. He ran through Army’s almost non-existent cover defense to put Jayasinghe through for his second try. Soon after Marija did the same to give Jayasinghe a hat trick. Liyanage himself benefited from a line break to touch down all in the space of just about six minutes to ensure that next Saturday’s clash with CR and FC will be for nothing more than bragging rights.
Army’s spirit had been broken and from then on it was one way traffic for most of the second half. Army was loosing line outs and scrums. Their ball handling let them down on the rare occasion they went on the offensive.
Kandy on the other hand was on fire. Substitutes Shashika Jayawardene and Dhanushka Pushpakumara touched with this year’s Kingswood captain Roshan Weeraratne making the conversions.
Referee:PriyanthaGuneratne
NO touch judges.
Kandy’s manager was compelled to run touch in yesterday’s game. When contacted a spokesman for the Referees Society said that they had sent several reminders to the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) Interim Committee requesting that pending payments be made. On Friday an Interim Committee representative had attended the Referees Society’s meeting and said that since rugby was an amateur game no payment could be made. Thus the referees had decided not officiate anymore with Priyantha Guneratne deciding to do so otherwise.Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Interim Committee Lasitha Guneratne speaking to the Sunday Times said: “I have not met with the Referees Society. Yes the payments are pending for the Caltex League because we requested the referees to submit the match reports which we require as documentary proof to release the payment. We have also sent several reminders, but we are yet to receive the documents we have requested. We did release one payment, but have not released the rest because we do need the reports to do so.”
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