Thomians in memorable 28-12 win over Isipatana

Jatila Karawita

A stirring second-half rally which resulted in a whopping unanswered 25 points being scored through a mixture of supreme fitness and sensible rugby enabled S. Thomas’ College to post a memorable 28-12 win over a patchy Isipatana MV XV in their Under-20 `A’ Division Tier `A’ Inter-school League tournament match ended at Havelock Park, last evening.

The winners collected their points through two goals, a try and three penalty goals to which the losers replied with a goal and a try, in a game played at a furious pace from start to finish.

S. Thomas’ smarting from their 33-37 loss to Royal last week, despite another terrific second-half fight-back, ensured there will be no repeat this time around, as they knocked the stuffing out of the Havelock Town lads after the turn around.

Trailing 3-12 at the interval, the lads from Mount Lavinia launched a magnificent counter-attack starting in the 43rd minute through prop R. Kodithuwakku who crashed over from a mid-field break which ensued after a close-range line out in the Isipatana `22’.

With left winger Arjuna Manoharan’s conversion the Thomians narrowed the scores 10-12 before the place kicker fired two 35-metre penalty goals in the 47th and 65th minutes respectively.

With 15 minutes still left for the final whistle of referee Aruna Jayasekera, S. Thomas’ led 16-12 before another two opportunistic tries scored by replacement prop A. M. Andrado and number eight Rajindra Gunasekera in the last 10-minutes of the game sealed a deserved victory for them.

Earlier, though, after a promising start by S. Thomas’ it was Isipatana MV who made an impact to shoot to a 12-3 half-time lead.

The Thomians drew first blood in the 15th minute through a Arjun Manoharan’s penalty goal, but from then onwards the green shirts took over to score two fluently worked off tries.

Crack left-wing Vishwamithra Jayasinghe added the finishing touches to a beautiful move begun by his skipper and inside centre Niroshana Fernando who sent out a cut-out pass before the fleet-footed three-quarter went under the posts in the 20th minute.

With full-back Prasad Devinda’s conversion Isipatana led 7-3. Seven minutes later, number eight Tharindu Siriwardena barged over from a forwards rush to make the score 12-3 as a result of the full-back’s failed conversion.

However, following the turn around S. Thomas’ got their act together and aided by a solid defence and wonderful staying power of their forwards saw them nailing one of their fiercest rivals in the domestic schools rugby arena for the second consecutive year.

For the winners their goal-kicker Arjun Manoharan also stood out with a personal haul of 13 points through three penalty goals and two conversions as they proved their 17-15 win over the same school in 2008 was no flash-in-the-pan.