It was a massacre at the Havelocks Sports Club grounds last evening when the Colombo combined schools vs Kandy combined schools came alive where the experienced Colombo outfit went on to pile up a mammoth stand of 58 points while in return Kandy were able to only score a pitiful 8 points.
With the likes of the heavyweights such as Kevin Dixon, Omalka Gunaratana & Lasindu Ishan skipper Isuru Rangala’s Kandy team lacked the sparkle and was in trouble from the start. A magnificent offload by Kevin Dixon saw the Science wing-three Sajith Roshan opening the scoring in the game with an unconverted try.
Photo Album – Colombo V Kandy Schools Rugby Encounter 2015
Following up their success, Nishon Perera charged down a Reeza Raffaideen clearance kick in their 22 meter to successfully score the second under the posts. With the ball going over, Colombo was on top from the very first minutes (12-0). This lad, Nishon was unstoppable on the field as he single-handedly scored the third for the day as well when he chased down his cross kick covering almost a fair 60 meters.
Kandy didn’t seem to get any breathing space in the first half as just after restart, the big lad Umesh Madushan hulled down three defenders and scored on the far left. The only consolation that the Kandyans got was Raffaideens 45 meter penalty and other than that, they weren’t sparred a single meter.
With three goals and four tries, Colombo had a commanding 26-point stand coming into the second half. It was Kandy however who got the breakthrough when winger Geshan Pethiygoda charged down a free ball that was in the opposition half and touched down on the far corner to bring in the first try. Unfortunately that was all Kandy were able to score for the rest of the game.
Over went Asitha Gayashan and the Isipathana hooker Sarathchandra to get their names on the score sheet as almost everyone in the Colombo team wanted to cross over for a try.
It was a beautiful sight to see the speed-machine from the schools season, Asitha Punchihewa back in action creating a perfect opportunity covering a distance of 50 meters on the corner flag and passed the ball onto Nishon Perera who scored his hat-trick of tries. Punchihewa followed his success on the assist up with a try that came through an interception and he tends to be unstoppable when he has the ball in his hands.
It was the D.S. Senanayaka fly-half Buddhima Priyaratna who scored the penultimate try as Colombo ended their scoring rage with the referees final whistle. With a mammoth score of 58 points, it portrayed a clear difference between the two sides giving indications on who would most likely end up in the national contingent.
It was disappointment for Kandy who looked to be lacking adequate practice and was sans team effort. Despite Colombo’s mammoth score line, many of the players looked to showcasing that they are worthy of a national jersey as we witnessed quite a many quick-taps taken sensing an urgency in the players to score.
Isuru’s Kandy team will need to go back to the board to see what went wrong for them and hopefully come back strong in the returning leg that will be played in Kandy on the 30th of October.
Final score : 58-8
