Jaffna Challengers, Uva Vipers on top

S.M. Jiffrey ABDEEN – Kandy Sports Corr.

Uva Vipers finished in top place in Pool 'A' and Jaffna Challengers topped Pool 'B' at the end of the first day of Carlton Super Rugby Sevens Sri Lanka 2012 which began at the Bogambara Stadium Kandy yesterday. The match will be continued today at 10.20 am.

The final match of this leg will be played at 5 pm for the first and second places (play off).

Uva Vipers scored 105 points during the day while 66 points were scored against them.

But the biggest upset of the day was when Central Kings defeated Uva Vipers by 35 points (5 goals) to 21 (3 goals) after the scores were deadlocked at 14 all at the breather.

The winners Central Kings scored their tries through Dan Norton (3 tries) and Matt Turner (2 tries) and the two try scorers did the conversion.

For Uva Vipers Cama Tomashi (1), Ranjan Radoshas (1) and Tim Mikkleson (1) scored and the first named goalled all three tries.

Uva Vipers apart from losing to Central Kings beat Northern Gladiators 31-12, beat North Western Blacks 19-12, beat Southern Sharks 34-7.

The second placed Central Kings beat Northern Gladiators 24-17, beat Uva Vipers 35-21, beat Southern Sharks 14-7 but surprisingly lost to North Western Blacks 21-7.

Central Kings scored a total of 80 points giving away 66 points. The balance three places were occupied by North Western Blacks Southern Sharks and in last place Northern Gladiators.

Jaffna Challengers are the only unbeaten team in the tournament so far having beaten Western Warriers 24-5 Eastern Eagles 26-19, North Central Typhoons 14-12, and Sabaragamuwa Stallian 26-7 in the last match for the day.

In their match against Sabaragamuwa Stallion, Jaffna Challengers collected their points through 3 goals and a try against a goal.

The scoring for Jaffna Challengers were done by Osea Kolinisan (1), Dilip Methruwan (2) and Tanida Maranunawasa (1), Tanida goalled 1 try and the other two by Arbeer Shamrock.

For the Sabaragamuwa Stallians Jack Wilson scored and Mark Jackman added the extra points.

The second placed Western Warriers in Pool 'B' after losing to Jaffna Challengers in the opening match did well to defeat Eastern Eagles 40-0, beat North Central Typhoons 21-12, beat Sabaragamuwa Stallions 26-7 to accumulate 92 points against 43 points scored off them.

In Pool 'B' the third place was occupied by Sabaragamuwa Stallions while in the fourth and fifth places were North Central Typhoons and Eastern Eagles.

The results of other matches played were North Western Blacks beat Northern Gladiators 19-12, Southern Sharks beat Northern Gladiators 19-12, Southern Sharks beat North Western Blacks 26-24, Northern Gladiators have still not registered a win so far and are lying last in their group.