Royal take Bradby Shield despite Pallakele ‘blues’  

By A Special Sports Correspondent

Royal College overcame the shock of suffering a surprise defeat at the hands of Trinity College at the second leg of the Bradby Shield rugby encounter at Pallakele on Saturday (September 3) when tradition allowed them to take home the coveted shield on a higher aggregate. This was thanks largely due to the massive runaway 29-0 win in the first leg the Colombo school had against the boys from the Central Hills two weeks ago. Trinity prevailed over Royal in the second leg with a smashing 26 points to 21 win and were declared the winners of the ‘Shield’ with an overall aggregate of 50 points as against 26.

The win for Trinity was just what the doctor ordered for the game of rugby. Otherwise, the result of the second leg was quite predicted and Royal were anyway assured of the shield because the lead taken in the Colombo leg by Royal was far too much for Trinity to catch up on.

Trinity’s playmakers on Saturday were skipper Lithmal Moragoda and linkman Shaveen Premaratne who produced tries in the first half and showed in no uncertain terms that Trinity would prevail in this game regardless of what the aggregate would be.Trinity collected their points through four unconverted tries and two penalties while Royal responded with three tries and two penalties.Trinity had the cutting edge in their moves and their players were fast and ferocious when the ball was ‘lose’ during play.

Royal made a comeback into the game after the ‘break’ with a try by hooker Dhanuja Samararatne, but Trinity equaled the scores to read 13 all with a penalty from Wickremesinghe; who otherwise was struggling for form with his kicking boot.Trinity pulled ahead after that with tries coming from Kaveesha Edema and Premaratne; the latter scoring the team’s final touch down-his second in the game- down all on his.Royal’s Yehiya converted two penalties in the game.

Royal ended their outing at Pallakele with a bit of a disappointment because their rolling maul didn’t work to perfection. However Royal retained the Shield for the sixth consecutive year after having started winning it back in 2015. There was no Bradby Shield encounters in 2020 and 2021 due to the covid pandemic.The game was controlled by referee Gihan Yatawara.