DSS favoured to prevail over rivals Zahira

D. S. Senanayake Skipper Sehanda Umagiliyage (left) and Zahira Captain Sabri Saibo with the R. I. T. Alles Memorial Trophy

By M. Shamil Amit

With the Inter-Schools Under-19 League Rugby Tournament concluded and awaiting for the President’s Trophy Knock-Out Tournament to get going, some of the rugby playing schools are now engaged in fulfilling their traditional matches played for trophies or shields.

D. S. Senanayake College, Colombo and Zahira College, Colombo are gearing up to battle it out in their annual Inter-School rugby encounter, which is fought out for the R. I. T. Alles Memorial Challenge Trophy and scheduled to be played tomorrow at the Zahira Grounds in Maradana, commencing at 4.00 p.m.

The R. I. T. Alles Memorial Challenge Trophy is lying at Zahira having won last year’s encounter in a thrilling encounter by 15 points 13 and this was also the schools knock-out quarter-final encounter as Zahira made it to the semi-finals with that win.

This will be the fourth match in the series which began in 2018 which Zahira won 19-17 and the match was not played for three years in 2019, 2020 and 
2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The resumption of the series in 2022 saw, D. S. Senanayake coming out victorious with a convincing 41 points to eight win while Zahira pulled 
off a thrilling 15-13 win last year.

However, this time the scale is in favour of D. S. Senanayake, which will be led by fly half Shehanda Umagiliyage, who has had a successful stint in the concluded Inter-Schools League Tournament where they chalked up five wins including a stunning win against the fancied Trinity College.

In addition, they recorded wins over Dharmaraja College, Science College, St. Anthony’s College and Sri Sumangala College and ended up as the fourth beat team in Group 1A.
Zahira on the other hand, led by No. 8 Sabri Saibo were able to record only three wins against Vidyartha College, Kingswood College and Thurstan College but they too managed to end up as the fourth best team in Group 2A.

With D. S. Senanayake having the edge they will go all out to regain the trophy and make it two each while for Zahira it’s going to be an acid test and considering their performances in the latter stages of the League Tournament they are capable of giving their opponents some anxious moments.