Under 19 Inter School Rugby League Week 2 Review Isipathana make it two wins in two

By M. Shamil Amit

Isipathana College have made a strong start to their  Inter-School Rugby League title defence, with their second successive  win, beating S. Thomas’ College 29-20 and taking the maximum available  points.  
Despite coming into the game as favourites, Isipthana were  made to work hard in the second half, but eventually came out on top for  a comfortable win.  
It appeared Isipathana were on course for a big win when  they extended the 17-03 half-time score top 29-03, but the Thomians hit  back with 17 unanswered points to run the game close.  

For the Pathanas skipper Naveen Kanishka, Rinesh Silva,  Kalindu Silva, Chamath Iroshan, Hashen Randimal and Shahid Zumri shone  while Mohamed Hakeem, Shanal Fernando and Yehan Bulathsinghalage were  the pick of the Thomians side.  
The two bonus point wins meant that Isipathana claimed all 12 points that were available to them.  

Fellow title contenders Royal College bounced back from  their defeat to St. Peter’s College in their opening match to beat  Science College 45-10 at the Science College Grounds.  
It was the likely outcome even before the game began, and so it proved as Royal were far too strong for their opponents.  
Science College, noted for their fighting spirit, tried to  make a match of it, cutting the deficit down to 16 in the second half,  the score reading 26-10, but the Royalist pulled away for a convincing  win.  

Trinity College meanwhile, proved the shock defeat to  Dharmaraja College was one-off, beating Vidyartha College 20-10 in their  match.  
They were made to work hard for it, and took a 12-00  half-time lead, but despite being outscored in the second half, Trinity  held on for the win.  
Returnees to the big league, D. S. Senanayake College, opened their campaign with a 23-19 win over St. Anthony’s College.  
St. Anthony’s opened their season with a win over St.  Joseph’s College 23-19, but were unable to get the better of D. S.  Senanayake.  
It turned out to be a keenly contested game with  fluctuating fortunes for both sides but overall the Dons as the DSS  outfit dominated proceedings and had the Eagles guessing.  
Zahira College, who were also making a return to top division school rugby, also registered a win, beating Dharmaraja 18-15 win.  
The Zahirians, or the Tankers as they are known, dominated  from the word go as they had the Rajans struggling for survival. They  got going by booting over two penalties and followed it with an  unconverted try to lead 11-0 before the home side reduced the deficit  with a penalty.  

But the Zahirians increased the lead just before the short  whistle with an unconverted try to take a healthy 18-5 lead at the  breather. In the second half though they were unable to make any scoring  with the Rajans going over for two unconverted tries the game was  sealed with the Tankers coming on top by 18-15.  
St. Joseph’s chalked up their first success of the season with a close 3-0 win over Wesley College.  
The score stood at 3-0 at half-time, with no further scoring in the game.  
The encounter saw some rough play which does not augur well for the tournament and in the process two Josepians were sin-binned.  
Hopefully the officials concerned should take this into consideration before it goes too far and out of control.