Kandy SC set to prevail against Police SC

By Shamseer Jaleel

Kandy, Dec. 16 (Daily Mirror) - The defending league champions, Kandy Sports Club will play their third game when they host Police Sports Club in their SLR Nippon Paint Inter-Club Rugby Tournament match at the Nittawela Stadium in Kandy on Sunday. The kick-off is scheduled for 3.45 p.m.

Kandy SC have performed well to beat the CH and FC (22-13) and Army SC (33-14) in their two previous encounters. They also collected bonus points in both outings.

This year Kandy SC, under Lavanga Perera are badly hit with injury concerns with the more experienced Praveen Charles and Lasith Attanagoda set to return to the side in one month time.

This setback has put the Kandy SC side under tremendous pressure but the youngsters have done really well to match their speedy three quarter line.

In fact, Dilshad Fareed and Thilina Bandara both played a super brand of rugby in the last two games.

Their three quarter line is simply outstanding with Nigel Ratwatte, Diluksha Dange, Dinal Ekanayake, Lavanga Perera, Tharinda Ratwatte and Srinath Sooriyabandara all in the starting line-up.

However, Kavindu Perera is still nursing an injury and will be back in the line-up for the second-round fixtures.

Meanwhile, Police SC, led by Mohan Wimalaratne have experienced mixed fortunes this season as they went down to CR and FC (6-19) last week having beaten Navy SC (41-22) in the opener.

Police SC have signed up with Hirantha Perera and Mithun Hapugoda and they are set make a huge impact to the former champions, who dominated local rugby in the 1980s and 1990s with league and knock-out wins in tandem.

They are coached by former Kingswoodian and national player Nilfer Ibrahim.

Referee: Ishanka Abeykoon.