23rd June 1996

It was one way traffic .....

Trinity explode in 2nd half

By Marlon Fernandopulle

A roaring second half talley by Trinity, helped them to a smashing 30 points (01 goal, 04 tries, 01 penalty) to 03 (01 penalty) win over Royal in the Bradby Shield 1st leg match played at the Sugathadasa Stadium last evening.

The architect of Trinity's victory was winger Prassanna Jayawardene. The lanky winger displayed tremendous speed as he made a few daring runs to score three times in Trinity's five try blitz in the second half.

It was a humiliating defeat for the Royalists who watched helplessly, as the Trinity Lions ran riot in the second half and scored five tries. The last 3 tries came in the last eight minutes of play when Royal defences were caught napping.

The defeat for the Roaylists will be a bitter pill due to the contrasting performances they gave during each half. They held the upper hand during the first half and came close to scoring on two occasions, but failed due to some faulty ball handling by their three-quarters. In the second half, the Royalists were completely rattled by the rampaging Trinitians.

The game got off to a flying start, with both sides running the ball with their three-quarters. The Trinity forwards were penalised for many mistakes during the initial stages of the game. However the Royalists were unable to drive home the advantage due to some scrappy play.

Royal opened scoring in the 9th minute when Rananja Gonaduwa fired across a 35 meter penalty, after missing a 40 metre penalty earlier. Inspired by the early lead, Royal made a couple of threatening moves to penetrate the Trinity defence, but were well held by their opponents.

Trinity equalised in the 13th minute when full back Nuwan Fernando kicked right between the uprights with a 40 metre penalty.

After the turnaround the Trinitians dished out a spectacular performance that had the spectators spell bound. Skipper Suranga Amarasinghe led from the front as the Trinitians completely outplayed the Royalists. In the 35th minute of play they took a short tap in the Royal 10 metres, and scrum half Mohamed Kaleel sneaked through the blind side to touch down.

Minutes later, Royal winger Rananja Gonaduwa, attempting a kick to clear the ball in his own territory, was well smothered by his opposite number Prasanna Jayawardene, and intelligently collected and scored. Fernando failed the conversion and Trinity led 13-3.

Enjoying a healthy 10-point lead the Trinitians made inroads into the Royal territory for the major part of the second half. They won the bigger share of the line-outs through their skipper Amarasinghe and shared possession in the scrums.

The Royalists were never allowed to recover, as Trinity pegged them down to their own territory. The dominance of Trinity was such in the second half that they went on to add three more tries in the last eight minutes of play.

Lanky winger Prassana Jayawardene who enjoyed a field day, scored his second try of the match when he collected a ball in the Rayal 25 and made a sizzling run through the Royal defence to score under the posts. Fernando added the extra points as Trinity led 20-3.

Minutes later No. 8 Madura Medagamage scored off a second phase move, after which Jayawardene drove the final nail into the Royal's coffin when he intercepted a pass from full back Abdulla Yousuf and covered over 35 meters to score by the corner flag. Referee Asela de Silva.