Anthonians earn a hard-fought 30-29 win over Wesley at rugby

by A Special Sports Correspondent

St. Anthony’s College produced a splendid performance which helped them beat Wesley College 30-29 in a Division 1 Segment A Group 1 match of the inter-school under19 league rugby tournament at Royal Sports Complex on Sunday (July 9).

The winners collected their points through three tries, three conversions and three penalties while Wesley earned their points through four tries, three conversions and one penalty.

Skipper Sahan Keerthisiri was all over the park and sent Wesley on the backfoot with his booming kicks to touch and scoring in the kicking department. He slotted in a 50 metre penalty in the second half, where his team dominated proceedings through their fast running backs and hard-working forwards.

The winners led 13-10 at halftime.

Royal College produced another clinical performance in rugby when they demolished Zahira College by 44 points to 3 in their Division 1 Segment A Group 2 match played at Royal Sports Complex on Saturday. This is the third week they ran up over 40 points in a school rugby match; keeping the same momentum after beating Vidyartha 47-3 a week ago.

Disas Pathirana (2), C. Senewirathne (1), K. Srikanth (1), A. Faruk (1) and T. Hassen (1) were the try scorers for Royal while S. Shafeek (1 conversion and 2 penalties) and N. Yahiya (3 conversions) did the honours in the kicking department. All six tries by Royal came in the second half.

Zahira did well to hold on and restrict the hosts to a penalty and also responded with a solitary penalty to ensure the scores were deadlocked at three all at halftime.

On Friday (June 7) Isipatana College proved too good for D.S. Senanayake at Havelock Park; running in as many as four tries from which one was converted. The game was fiercely contested right to the very end even though the score line doesn’t suggest so. The winners collected their points through tries coming from Shehandu de Costa, Shahid Zumri, Kalindu Shenal and Kaveen Thinethra while Rinesh Silva slotted in one conversion. The Isipatana third try was a beauty with Zumri initiating it with a flip pass and feeding the move again to ensure Kalindu went over on the left corner flag. S. Umagiliyage slotted in two penalties for the losers.

St. Peter’s did well to down Trinity 22-10 at Pallakelle in another keenly contested game played on Saturday.

The winners raked in three tries, two conversions and a penalty while Trinity responded with a try, a conversion and a penalty. The try scorers for St. Peter’s were Ravindu Ridmal, Sudesh Jayawickreme and Ashen Madugaspe while Thenuk Fernando produced the solitary try for the hosts.

In another match of the schools’ league rugby tournament, Vidyartha edged out Dharmaraja 29-22. The match was played at Bogambara Stadium on Saturday.