Thomians in second win regain de Saram Shield

Jatila KARAWITA

RUGBY: S. Thomas’ College Mt. Lavinia continued with their splendid rise from the dead, following the season’s opening loss to Royal, with a handsome 26-17 win over Trinity College, Kandy in an exciting President’s Schools League inter-school rugby match at Mount Lavinia, last evening.

The Thomians who led the game twice at different stages, saw Trinity tieing the scores once and then taking the lead before their overall dominance of the forward pack helped to stave off a late charge from the visitors. The winners collected their points from three converted tries and a try to which the losers replied with a converted try and two tries, but the former could have swelled their total but for poor ball-handling in the first-half.

The home side drew first blood as early as the third minute when prop S David managed to sneak through on the blind side from a short tap but left-wing Arjun Monoharan’s conversion was awry for them to lead 5-0.

The Thomian pack continued to dominate the set-pieces and in the 29th minute left-wing Manoharan showed a clean pair of heels to the opposition after a period of sustained pressure on the Trinity try line to cross over and his own conversion saw them taking a 12-0 lead. Undaunted by this score, the ‘Lions’ penetrated the S. Thomas’ defence in the 35th minute when right-wing Kennon Armstrong in a display of individual brilliance swatted aside four defenders to go under the posts and with his conversion the scores still read 12-7 in favour of the hosts.

Following the turn around., with the second half only six minutes old, Trinity left-wing Akila Dissanayake added the finishing touches to a fluent three-quarter move with the fluffed conversion, the scores were levelled at 12-all. Trinity pumped up at this stage breached the Thomian defence in the 51st minute when outside centre L. U. P. Samarasekera had a touchdown but again the failed conversion allowed them to lead 17-12. From then on the Thomians took control of the game to score two well executed tries in the 55th and 65th minutes which really put the game beyond the reach of the ‘Lions’.

The first try in the second-half for the Thomians was scored by strongly built number eight R. Gunasekera who made a brilliant mid-field break and covered over 30 metres to score unchallenged. The second was grabbed by prolific lock forward Janith Jayasuriya and with Arjun Manoharan’s conversion who overall contributed 11 points) a converted try and two conversions). S. Thomas’ College regained the coveted Canon R. S. de Saram Shield.