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| Sunday, 22 May 2005 |
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Havies held to 18-all draw by Army by Lal Gunasekera It was a fitting result at Havelock Park yesterday in the Caltex 'A' Division League Rugby Championship where the depleted Army fought back to hold Havelocks to a 18-all draw after Havies led 5-3 at half-time. The Havies collected their points through three tries and one penalty, while the soldiers scored through a goal, a try and two penalties. The soldiers were quite a depleted side without second-rower Jayasuriya and third-row forward Madurasinghe. They came into this game confident of winning, but were never given the opportunity to get on top. They had won three of their four games this season, but made too many mistakes. The outsides did their best and so did the forwards, but team work was not there. The Havelocks' on the other hand had lost all their games. They even lost to Navy last week and none would have expected them to win yesterday. They did not, but they could have. Early in the game, full-back Senaka Kumara fluffed two simple penalties and, then in the second minute of injury time, substitute Asela Abeykoon (coming in for fly-half Thajudeen) saw his 40-metre drop fail with the ball striking the cross-bar. With it went their first win for the season. After the two failed penalties by Senaka Kumara for Havies, T. A. Silva put Army ahead in the 22nd minute through a 30-metre penalty, while 10 minutes before the breather, Havies went ahead through one of their forwards on the left extreme who managed to creep through the Army defence off a sudden counter attack. After the "turn around", T. A. Silva put Army ahead once again with a another 30-metre penalty in the second minute, but five minute later, Havies went ahead again. This time, fly-half Thajudeen ran on the "blind side" and passed the ball to Senaka Kumara who had joined the threes to score. But the latter missed the difficult conversion. This was off a scrum inside Army "22". The Havies went further ahead with a try by Lalindra Rodrigo when he found the Army defence napping in the 15th minute after T. A. Silva had kicked an "up and under". Eight minutes later, substitute Abeykoon fired across a 30-metre penalty for Havies to lead 18-6. Army then fought back to reduce the lead with fly-half Kumara selling a dummy to score under the posts for Silva to have an easy conversion (Army 13-18). This was in the 27th minute, while five minutes later, Army's substitute Lanka (coming in for Perakum Fernando) ran over 40-metres to touch down far left, with T. A. Silva missing the conversion, the scores were equal (18-all). Then came the missed drop kick by Abeykoon for Havies in injury time and with it whatever chances they had of a win. Anil Jayasinghe refereed. On Friday, Police beat Air Force by 20 points (4 tries) to 16 (2 tries, 2 penalties) at Longden Place. Today (Sunday), CR & FC meets Old Zahirians at Longden Place at 5 p.m. CH win 19-9 CH & FC beat Navy by 19 points (2 tries, 3 penalties) to 9 (3 penalties) at Welisara in another Caltex 'A' Division League Rugby Championship game at Welisara yesterday. At half time, the scores were 9-all. |
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