CH survive to beat Airmen
CH made a few breakthroughs, but efforts were prevented into becoming points by the Airmen – Pic by Eshan Fernando
CH&FC recorded their third win of the season, but not after going through the greatest scare of their lives against a spirited Air Force SC outfit in the game that ended 14-10 in favour of the hosts, in a fifth week SLR Nippon Paint Club Rugby League game played at the Racecourse ground in Colombo yesterday.
Everything seemed to be running smooth for CH, who scored from two converted tries during the first half against a penalty conceded to lead the first half by 14-3. But they were made to struggle and fight, not as easily imaginable, but desperately, against a highly motivated and organised Air Force unit, who gave no room at all at any cost.
CH would have thought that they could earn a cakewalk win when prop Prasath Madushanka rolled over to score a try in the third minute itself, and with fullback Hirusha Nethmina’s conversion they were leading 7-0 in no time. But little did they know that experienced campaigner Gayantha Iddamalgoda, who played at the flyhalf position, made plots to have CH commit errors. By the seventh minute Iddamalgoda saw his experiment working out, by earning a penalty which helped Air Force but down the deficit to 7-3.
CH were relatively clinical not to fall into plots and successfully penetrated all attempts made by the Airmen during the rest of the first half. They even went on to touch down, when centre Dinesh Lakshan, who served 10 minutes in the sin bin earlier, returned to brace a try in the 38th minute. With Nethmina’s conversion CH led the halftime by a healthy margin of 14-3.
But the second half was a total contrast. Instead of attacking Air Force forced CH to commit errors and were put into constant pressure. Even the few breakthroughs made by CH, which had the possibility of adding more points to their tally, were prevented due to sheer pressure applied by the Airmen.
Halfway through the second half, the Airmen changed their approach and were mostly hovering inside the CH territory. And eventually they found a breakthrough in the 53rd minute to breach the CH defence and touch down, but the referee found that CH skipper Avantha Lee had committed a serious error. This resulted in Air Force being awarded a penalty try and Lee being shown a yellow card.
This put CH in a dire position, as they already had lost flyhalf Nethmina to a yellow card offence two minutes earlier. With an advantage of two extra men, and with a slim deficit of 14-10, Air Force put all their resources to take advantage of the situation. But after losing Isuru Jayaratne for a yellow card offence in the 58th minute, they slowed down.
In the following 20 minutes or more, Airmen continued their offence, mostly on CH’s 22 or 10, but were visibly drained after delivering all their efforts. Despite losing Mohamed Abzal with three minutes to go for a yellow card offense, CH still managed to hold on to their ground to earn a much-needed win, despite conceding a losing bonus point to Air Force.