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| Sunday, 22 August 2004 |
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Royal win Bradby Shield for fourth successive year : Trinity beaten 0-10 by Jiffrey Abdeen - Kandy Sports Corr. Royal College recorded a historic fourth successive wins when they beat Trinity College by 10 points (2 tries) to nil in the second leg of the 60th Bradby Shield encounter sponsored by Singer Sri Lanka Limited and played before a capacity crowd at the Bogambara Stadium in Kandy yesterday. At half time there was no scoring. This was the first time the Royalists had scored four Bradby wins in a row, the must they had managed was three wins in row from 1978 to 1980, then again from 1988 to 1990 and the present sequence of wins which began in 2001 including a record aggregate of 83-0 in 2002 under Zulki Hameed. But the longest sequence of wins is by Trinity who won from 1952 to 1957 - six wins in a row. With this win Royal have increased their tally to 27 against 32 by Trinity with one match ending in a tie in 1992 when both matches ended in draws. Before the commencement of the match both teams were introduced to the Chief Guest Mohan Sahayam - a former Trinity fly half and a Rugby Lion who played with distinction for CR & FC and All Ceylon before a knee injury forced him out of the game in 1971. Though the Trinitian lost they were never disgraced as they held on grimly and never allowed the Royalists to dictate terms and many expected Royal to over run the lions after their 41-6 win in the first leg. Facing a huge deficit of 35 points, there was little the Trinitians could do other than restricting the Royalists as wiping out this deficit was out of the question against this Royal side which had three national players in centre Rajith Jayasundera, winger and skipper Lakshaman Dissanayake and full back Shehab Bahudeen. Royal's forwards were very fast and superior and they rucked and mauled beautifully and their level of skills in picking up the loose ball and good in addition to being mobile. The game started with play drifting into Royal territory very early in the second minute were awarded a penalty within the kicking abilities of a place kicker Isuru Jayasena but opted to move the ball which did not bear any fruits. Then came a relentless attack by the Royalists and Trinity's fortress appeared to be under siege for a good 10 minutes but their defence held. One was surprised to see Royal's forwards keeping the ball for a long while their speedy three quarters watched helplessly against some back to the wall defence by Trinity. Trinity were also seen in an attacking mood during the last few minutes of the first half before Royal's full back Shehab Bahudeen relieved pressure by kicking to touch and with that the teams went for the short break. Trinity who went into this game without skipper Ayaz Ainaff and prop Roshan Munaweera did well to contain the marauding Royalists in the initial half. But Trinity did not play with the same gusts in the second and adding to their woes was that two of their players winger H. Mendis and later I. Jayasena were sent on 'sin bin' on separate occasions for dangerous play which meant they played with 14 players for two spells of ten minutes each. Royal's first scoring effort came in the 9th minute of the second half when off a line out they drew through Trinity' light defence for lock forwards Dhanushka Rajapakse to go over mid left. Full back Shehab Bahudeen's kick at goal struck the right post and went out. Trinity recovered from this impact but lack of finish deprived them the chance of scoring. They were also awarded with a penalty deep inside Royal territory but Trinity opted to move the ball but were stopped by the good defence put up by Royal's back division. In the 20th minute Royal scored their second try when winger Lakshaman Dissanayake went over by the right corner flag. Shehab Bahudeen failed with a difficult kick at goal. Orwille Fernando refereed. Trinity were held to a 10 all draw in the under 17 game but won the Simithrarachchi Trophy by virtue of their 23-0 win in the first leg. The results of the junior matches played were: Under 11 Trinity beat Royal 14-0. Under 13 Royal beat Trinity 14-7. Under 15 Trinity beat Royal 10-0. |
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