St. Anthony’s dash D. S. Senanayake’s Super Round hopes

By M. Shamil Amit
The curtains of the Dialog Schools Under 19 Rugby league tournament which came down last week with the ending of the sixth week of matches saw St. Anthony’s College coming out victorious in the three-way battle for the fourth Super Round slot which also involved D. S. Senanayake College and S. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia.
The Eagles and S. Thomas’ needed to win with a bonus point while DSS who had four wins under their belt just needed to win their match against St Joseph’s College which they failed to do.
The match between St. Anthony’s College and S. Thomas’ College was expected to be closely contested due to the fact that the two teams had fluctuated fortunes and were in the running for a to book the final slot for the Super Round clash. This was also fought out for the Rev. Fr. Angelo Rosati Memorial Trophy which has been on the shelves of the seaside boys for over a decade.

The Eagles in the end did it style with a comprehensive 34 points to 17 win which saw them earn the much-needed bonus point to qualify to the Super Round and then regain the Fr. Angelo Rosati Memorial Trophy and record their first win against the Thomians after a lapse of 12 years.
They joined defending champions Isipathana, St. Peter’s and Royal in the Super Round.
D. S. Senanayake came into their game against St. Joseph’s with a lot of expectations to qualify to the Super Round but unfortunately it was not to be as the Josephians put in a powerful brand of rugby to come out easy winners by 29 points to 16.
The Josephians were on fire from the start as they had the D. S. Senanayakae guessing and began their scoring within the first five minutes of the game and then followed it up with another try which both were converted to go into the lead 14-00 with D. S. Senanayake being able to reply with only a penalty.
Though the Josephinas played with 14 due to a player being sent to the sin-bin it did not deter them from continuing their scoring spree as they planted back to back tries within the space of ten minutes to lead 24-06 

at the breather.
On resumption it was going to be daunting task for DSS who had erase a deficit of 18 points but they succeeded to make the first scoring from a try which was converted and then made use of the penalty that was offered before the Josephians made their only score in this session from an unconverted try to come out winners 29-16.
However the DSS side has nothing to lose and they can be fully satisfied with their performance of having won four matches from the six they played and unfortunately their hopes of qualifying to the next 
round was dashed.
It was a massacre of the innocents as St Peter’s demolished Vidyartha by a massive 66 points to 10 which incidentally is the highest score of the ongoing Dialog Schools Rugby 
league tournament.
The ultimate outcome of this match was known but the only thing to see what would be the final scoring line. The Peterites made merry and ran circles around their opponents to take a commanding 35-5 
lead at the breather.
The clash between Kingswood and Wesley also was of dual purpose as the two teams were seeking their first win and aiming to claim the L.E. Blaze Trophy.
Even though it was Kingswood who made the first scoring from a penalty booted over, the Wesleyites from there had the game under their control as they posted three tries of which one was converted to have a comfortable 17-3 lead at the breather,
The Wesleyites continued to dominate in the second half and succeeded to add a further 13 points from two unconverted tries and a penalty with Kingswood scoring two tries as Wesley came out on top by 30 points to 17 to retain the L.E. Blaze 
Memorial Trophy.

The match beetween Trinity and Zahira did not take place despite Trinity having come all the way to Colombo.
Trinity had handed over a letter that they are unable to play the match due to medical reasons concerning their players.
Zahira is liable to receive a walk over which is the rules stated in the school manual and they are waiting for the final outcome to be taken by the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association.