A thrilling comeback enabled St. Peter’s to walk out of from a possible defeat as they overcame a spirited St. Joseph’s rally 23-17 in an Under-20 schools league rugby game at Royal Sports Complex yesterday. With this win St. Peter’s retained the Rev. Fr. Basil Wiratunga Trophy for the thirteenth consecutive year. The winners ran down three tries inclusive of a conversion and two penalties while St. Joseph’s fought back with three tries and a conversion. At half time the Peterites held on to a meager 8-5 lead.
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| A Josephian player moves in to stop attacking Peterite forwards. (Pic by Ranjith Perera) |
The Peterites coming back from their first defeat in seventeen games at the hands of Trinity last week played to a game plan which was well countered by their traditional rivals of 41 years. St. Peter’s got their acts in place with the usual sturdy three-quarter moves to give skipper and fullback Bhanuka Nanayakkara the opportunity to breach the Josephian defence four minutes from the start to lead 5-0.
St. Joseph’s who tackled well throughout the match prevented St. Peter’s from not repeating similar moves. Instead they used their burly forward Yohan Keyzer to seek a scoring opportunity. In the 30th minute St. Joseph’s was brought down to 14 men when centre Chamod Umeshanka was caught for making an unaccounted for contact with an opposition player. However the numbers became equal when Peterite flyhalf Dulaj Perera was spotted a minute later by the touch judge for a similar offence. After maintaining control for 37 minutes St. Joseph’s leveled the scores from a maul through prop Nuwan Wanniarachchi. But two minutes later scrumhalf Rizwan Meedin gave St. Peter’s the lead again with a sharp penalty as they took the breather at 8-5.
Meedin sprang into action six minutes after resumption to extend St. Peter’s lead at 11-5 with a solid kick at the post through a penalty. Even in the second half St. Joseph’s maintained their rock solid defense while making quick use of their burly of forward Keyzer to infringe their opponent’s territory. In the 63rd minute Keyzer was successful with this tactical move which ended up with a try by the post. Fly half Godfrey White’s perfect conversion sent all the Josephians into raptures as they enjoyed a 12-11 lead for the first time. In the 75th minute Josephian forward Keyzer was sin-binned by referee Dinka Peiris. The referee mistook Keyzer for the previous offender Wanniarachchi who wore the No.1 jersey. He mistakenly red-carded the No.3 player and handed him a two-match ban.
With this blow the Josephians’ lead was short-lived for 17 minutes when the Peterites came with their second opportunity making use of their powerful three-quarters. They turned tables by picking up the ball from their own 22 to run through to score a try through centre Danushka Ranjan from the left flank. With fly half Perera’s conversion the Peterites gained control at 18-12. Five minutes later, during the injury time, hooker Shenal Abeysekara scored in similar fashion to extend the lead at 23-12. Scrumhalf Piyum Jayasinghe staged a late fight back and scored an unconverted try to finish off at 23-17.
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