Royal thump Thomians to retain Michael Gunaratne Trophy
After a slow beginning, Royal College went up full-throttle to hand their traditional rivals, S. Thomas’ College a 26-6 defeat and retain the Michael Gunaratne Trophy in their annual rugby fixture played at Mt. Lavinia yesterday.
Though the hosts gained an early lead of 3-0 during the early stage of the game, Royal regained their usual momentum to lead the first half by 14-3, and clean up the game with tally of four tries and three conversions. The only solace S. Thomas’ had was the two penalties put over by their able fullback and placekicker Yehan Bulathsinhalage, who rarely misses conversions, even from difficult distance.
It was a game of wearing the opponents up and utilising of probably the best set of forwards the ended Dialog Schools Rugby League as the Royal tight five had the better of the Thomian counterparts in a fast-paced game that was riddled with mistakes from both sides.
The final score doesn’t justify the fine game played by the Thomians, especially the line that made some daring runs into Royal territory only to be thwarted by their own undoing of making mistakes in last few moves. However Royal, who has a slow start shifted gears in second half to clinically finish the game with their heavy set of forwards making mincemeat of the Thomians in the last 15 minutes of play. Bulathsinhalage put the Thomians in front by the second minute of the game with a penalty awarded, but seven minutes later they missed out a golden opportunity to further extend their lead after the reliable kicker made a rare mishap of a kick. The similar mishap occurred 10 minutes later, indicating that it was a Thomians’ game to lose.
Royal had the opportunity to equalise on the 24th minute, but fullback Nabeel Yahiya fluffed a straightforward kick. With that the Thomian line successfully countered the Royal territory, but with defence the league runners-up managed to prevent any scoring by their opponents.
Six minutes before the halftime the Thomian No.8 was sin-binned for foul play, to which Royal responded by capitalising on the opportunity. Royal scrumhalf Savishka Fernando found the tiniest crack in the Thomian defense and touched down on the mid right, as Yahiya made no mistake with the conversion to take his team to a 7-3 lead.
As the game progressed, the Royalists settled to their usual style of play of attrition of their opponents with their heavy set of forwards which brought their second try as skipper Randula Senanayake touched down with a blistering run on the stroke of half time. Yahiya was on target an easy conversion to extend the lead 14-3 for Royal.
Nearly 10 minutes after the resumption the Royal forwards gave away penalty for a silly infraction, which was converted to points by Bulathsinhalage, who took superb kick nearly 50 yards out to cut the deficit 14-6.
Royal hit back five minutes later with their weapon of choice, the rolling maul as Senanayake planted his second try. Yahiya made no mistake with the difficult conversion to bring the score 21-6.
On the 62nd minute of play Thomian fullback Bulathsinhalage was yellow carded for his line continuously being offside as Royal forwards, led by Senanayake, was on beast mode in the last 15 minutes. The Royal skipper scored his a hat-trick of tries with a beautifully executed rolling maul which the Thomian tight five had no answer.
Royal was reduced to 13 players as Yahiya received a yellow card and scrum half Shafeek was red carded for foul play in the last five minutes of play, but the Thomians were unable to make any headway as the game ended 26-6 in favour of Royal.