By M. Shamil Amit

A late burst by Royal College was too much for St. Joseph’s as back-to-back tries in ten minutes before the long whistle saw them seal the game by 17 points to 3 in the crucial Dialog Schools Rugby tournament encounter played at Havelock Park on Friday (22).

The first-half was hotly contested, which saw the lemons being taken by Royal, holding on to a slender 7-3 lead, and they made up their score through a goal and tries to the solitary penalty scored by St. Joseph’s.

It was the Josephians who drew first blood through a penalty kicked over by fly-half Dilhara Subash in the eighth minute. From there on, Royal took control of the game and succeeded in breaching the Josephian defence, with second-row Rahil Wijesekera going over for a try, which was converted by full-back Nabil Yehiya.

Royal continued their onslaught but could not make any headway due to the stiff resistance put in by the Josephian defence, with which the short whistle was blown.

On resumption, the Josephians have to blame themselves as they failed miserably, having given the Royal defence some torrid moments. In fact, they were in the Royal territory for well over 25 minutes but lacked the finishing touch and threw away several scoring opportunities, which included five-metre scrums just near the Royal goal line.

Proceedings in this session were delayed due to severe injuries to players from both sides, and with no scoring being done, the Royalists got into action, and they fought back to have the Josephians struggling for survival.

In a kick-for-touch pattern, Royal made use of the opportunities they got, which began with prop-forward Supun Gamlath’s unconverted try, helping them to stretch the lead, which was followed by scrum-half Hasnaka Higgoda's unconverted try, which sealed the game for Royal and tarnished the Josephians' unbeaten record.

Royal completed their league assignment with four wins from five matches played, and it's now a wide-open contest with three teams battling for the first two slots to advance to the next stage: Royal, St. Joseph's, and Trinity.

Trinity is scheduled to lock horns with hometown rivals Kingswood today, while St. Joseph’s will play their last match against St. Anthony's, which was postponed, next week, after which the top two teams will be decided.

Referee: Ishanka Abeykoon
 
Photo: Scrum-half Hasnaka Higgoda going over for Royal College's last try (Picture by Kushan Pathiraja)