The Tuskers consolidated their newly earned status as the third best sevens rugby team in Asia when they thrashed Chinese Taipei 38-0 in the Plate finals of the Asian Sevens Series rugby tournament held in Yio Chu Kang Sports Complex, Singapore.
The winners bounced back from some average play earlier in the day and dominated the game with Sandun Herath, Srinath Sooriyabandara, Jason Dissanayake, Mithun Hapugoda, Chula Susantha and the debutante Lavanga Perera scoring tries.
The nippy Sri Lankan scrum-half Srinath Sooriyabandara became the third highest try scorer of the entire tournament with 18 tries just behind Thomas Mcqueen of Hong Kong (19 tries) and Lomano Lemeki of Japan (27 tries). Sooriyabandara also accounted for the fourth highest total points with 96 with Katsuyuki Sakai (Japan, 103 points), Benjamin Rimene (Hong Kong, 110 points) and Lomano Lemeki (Japan, 139 points) above him.
Sri Lanka skipper Fazil Marija secured the 8th place in the total points category with 84 points (with 6 tries) while Sandun Herath took the 10th place with 50 points with 10 tries to his account.
Earlier today the Sri Lankans looked somewhat defocused and lost to the third place winner of the competition, China 17-12 in a close match. This defeat deprived the Sri Lankans of having any hopes of reaching the top four.
In the next match against Malaysia, once again Sri Lanka wobbled throughout the game but placed themselves in front of their opponents just before the long whistle to secure an unconvincing 21-14 victory.
In the preliminary round yesterday, Sri Lanka thumped Indonesia 43-0 in their first match and then defeated Philippines 17-14 in another tight contest.
Japan won the cup final against Hong Kong 24-19.
It was also widely speculated that the doors of the prestigious Hong Kong 7s was going to be opened for the overall third place holder in the Asian sevens ranking.
