Kingswood outplay Royal 15-10

by S. M. Jiffrey ABDEEN - Kandy Sports Correspondent

Kingswood College pulled off a great 15 points (1 goal, 1 try, 1 penalty) to 10 (2 tries) win over Royal College in their schools Singer Trophy under 19 Division One rugby tournament match played at the Bogambara stadium, Kandy yesterday. At half time the scores stood deadlocked at 10 all.

When the game was barely five minutes old, a thunderstorm broke out and made ground conditions wet and slippery and both teams found handling of the ball difficult.

First 20 minutes did not produce any scoring as both teams appeared to have difficulty in getting themselves acclimatised to sudden change of weather and wet ground conditions.

It was the Kingswoodians kept the scoreboard moving in the 21st minute of play when their forwards took play deep inside the Royal territory and switched play into their back division and Prabath Jayalath ended the move by scoring mid left.

Skipper Rajitha Sansoni added the extra points. Kingswoodians 7-0.

In the 26th minute Royal forward exerted a lot of power and Kingswood's defence wilted and No 8 Shihan Pathirana went over far right.

In the 36th minute Royal took over the lead for the first time when their back division moved the ball sweetly and Tharaka Wijesuriya scored by the right corner flag.

Just before the short blast a Royal defender was penalised for hands in the rocks and Kingswood's Tilina Weerasinghe converted a 45 metre penalty to level the scores to ten all.

After the turn-around Kingswoodians put pressure on their opponents and almost forced them on to submission.

In the 8th minute they won a line-out inside their opponents `22' and their three quarters moved the ball and full back Tilina Weerasinghe who joined the line to form the overlap to score far left. He failed to add the extra points but Kingswood had regained the lead 15 - 10.

In the period of 30 minutes play which followed both teams strived hard to score but their defences held Royal in particular looking forward to win this match.