The drizzling evening on Havelock Grounds was all set to witness the fight for the silverware between two giants in the University Rugby arena, UOM and UOP.
The stadium was packed by both sets of fans, mostly students, who shouted their hearts out in support of the teams despite the clumsy weather conditions. UOP outran SAB 43-0 in their first match followed by a comfortable 31-10 win in the semifinal versus USJP and forwarded themselves to the final. On the other hand, UOM tarnished WAY 33-0 in their opener before comprehensively undid UOC 57-5 in the semifinal.
UOM wore their grey and black stripped shirt where the counterparts were seen in red and black. The early minutes of the match were belonged to UOP as they attacked in numbers from the first whistle. Eventually, Hasith Wickramasinghe of UOP stole the egg from the mishandling pass in the line play by the opponents and drew the first blood of the match. The try was converted by fly half Padmaka Bandara. Minutes later on the other half of the grounds, No.8 Dhanuka Anthony saw an extra man down the line, took a quick tap and ran before his pass was sensationally touched over the line by Asira Udayakantha. Full back Maithri Siriwardhene missed the conversion from a tight angle.
UOM settled slowly but steadily into the play, structured the moves well and got the game on their toe. The man in sublime form, Maithri Siriwardhene, consolidated his earlier miss with a fabulous 30 yard penalty to earn his side the lead for the first time in the evening. Thus, it was followed by some good spells of pressure by UOM which was credited with two tries through flanker Zuhair Zavahir and Chamindu Kalanasooriya. The camp in the hill country was pulverized by this rapid textbook stuff but the last minute of the first half saw a penalty for UOP converted by Padmaka Bandara. The scorecard read 18-10 in favour of UOM at lemons.
When the referee got the match underway in the second half, UOP came up with a different flavour of rugby where they took charge of the game in every aspect. However, UOM went defensively and avoided their pressure as a unit. The forwards of UOP stormed their way towards the touchline but the hosts won the ball with a matter of nervous yards away. UOM took time to set the pace again but when they broke through the right where player went for a diving try under the posts but unexpectedly dropped the ball, a whistle for the knock on denied a huge advantage. UOP capitalized on the nerve wrecking defensive error as Padmaka Bandara picked a perfect pass from the line to score an important try. He didn’t fail to convert that put the match well poised for an extreme climax with the score of 18-17.
“You score next; you win” was the talk of the stadium as the sunlight faded over the horizon and covered the arena, the wings of darkness. Hearts in the mouth of the spectators, some were shivering, some were praying and the others were speechless. However, one man on the field had a different approach on his mind and calmed the whole crowd with a spectacular run down the right for the glorious moment of the game. Dinuka Hettiarachchi of UOM stole the night with a diving try and that’s meant to be the last piece of action for the day. UOM won the prestigious title 23-17 and added valuable points to their tally for Overall Championship.
The crowd felt the heat of the game ran onto the players and congratulated them. Completely contrasting feeling between the two sides, the winners showed a great sportsmanship by cheering up the runners-up on the field. The winners’ camp is filled with zest and joy, the players danced to the rhythm of success. The Captain of UOM, Charith Fonseka, had this to share with MoraSpirit, “We lost in the final twice in two. We’ve been waiting for this moment for years. We’ve worked hard for this moment. It is a proud moment. UOP played fantastically. They put us in real pressure in the second half. We held our nerves. Lads deserve it.”
