Hockey: Royal-Thomian annual clash ends in a thrilling draw

Royal and S. Thomas' were declared joint winners at the 17th Batlle of the Blues hockey encounter for the Orville Abeynaike Trophy at the Astro Turf on Torrington on Saturday (30). 

The game failed to produce a result as the scores stood 0-0 even at the end of extra time. 

Thomians dominated play with fast and run play game who had the major possession of the ball right throughout the first half. 

The play maker of the match was Thomian No. 6 R.P. Nallapperuma who combined with the forwards in making several attempts to score. 

He was involved in most movements of the Thomians but they failed to put the finishing touches as their forwards were not spread out to receive the good ball. 

The rock hard Royal defence line and the custodian did a commendable job in clearing away the ball to the mid field. 

Mid way in the first half Royal gathered momentum to invade the Royal goal area but bad positioning of the forwards paid the penalty. 

The first half failed to produce any scoring and the game came to alive in the second half by exhibiting good stick work as. 

Both back divisions were kept on their toes but none of the sides were able to breakthrough to sounding the board. 

The score stood 0-0 at the long whistle. 

Both sides failed to score in the extra time but the Thomians missed a golden opportunity in the last minute of play when they failed to score off a short corner. 

Thomian R.P. Nallapperuma was adjudged the Player of the Match. 

Chandana Herath Bandara and M.J.M. Naushad controlled the game. 

In the Old Boys match Thomians scored a 3-1 win to clinch the Nihal Nilaweera Trophy. 

Pumega Kulatunga, Raveen Gunasekera and Pramod Nallapperuma scored a goal each for the winners while Shaheed Hussain scored the solitary goal for Royal. 

Royal scored an easy 2-0 win over the Thomians in the inaugural match where right extreme Dinal Dhamsilu who was the Best Player of the Match had a good game in scoring both goal for Royal.