Joes tame Dons
RUGBY
St. Joseph’s College thumped giant killers D.S. Senanayake College with a 29-16 win with bonus in their last first round game of the Dialog Schools Rugby League 2023 played at Havelock Park yesterday. Despite their five-try win, Josephians still failed to make the cut to the Super Round yet spoilt D.S. Senanayake’s easy passage to a historic phase in school rugby.
St. Joseph’s made their intentions clear, by attacking from the kickoff and led the halftime 24-6, to end with a tally of five tries and two conversions. The Dons, on the other hand had a clear way forward had they approached the game in a more methodical manner, having placed second to table leaders and defending champions Isipathana College. However, they chose to play safe and took easy penalty kicks and eventually spoilt their chances after scoring from a solitary converted try and three penalties.
Knowing the potential of their opponents St. Joseph’s made an offensive approach only to be paid off with a typical crashing try from skipper and No.8 Naveen Marasinghe in the fourth minute. Ivano White added the extra points to give the Josephians an early 7-0 lead. Playmaker and lock Ayeshan Lanka, who was pervasive throughout the game, landed the second try for them in the 11th minute, and with White’s conversion they were standing high at 14-0 by then.
DSS had many an opportunity to breach their opponent’s defence, but they opted to go for penalty kicks, even when St. Joseph’s were brought down to 14 men in the 24th minute. They added six points through penalties from Shehanda Umagiliyage in the 15th and Janindu Wijeratne in the 32nd minutes, but only between two more tries from their opponents.
Winger Tharusha Jayasuriya landed a try in the 29th minute for the Josephians, and within the brink of halftime winger Rishma Jayasekara added their fourth to secure bonus points as the eventual winners led 24-6 at the break.
Scrumhalf Manura Peiris gave DSS a thundering start soon after the turnaround to score a beautiful try, which was converted by Wijeratne as they cut down the deficit to 13-24 by the 40th minute of the game. DSS still has plenty of room to make a resurgence and turn the game around, but they failed to finish off their moves into vital points. To add salt to their already failing approach, DSS lost the services of playmakers – Umagiliyage and skipper and centre Jayathu Rajaratne – due to injuries. Their only solace was a penalty that came in favour in the 69th minute, which was put over by the tryscorer Peiris. But the Josephians took the remaining minute to their advantage and scored an unconverted try, the second of the game for Jayasekara, before referee Gihan Yatawara blew the long whistle.