Navy fight-back to beat Havelocks 17-13

By Ranjan Anandappa

The defending champions Navy Sports Club beat Havelocks Sports Club by 17 points (two goals, one penalty) to 13 (one goal, two penalties) in their Dialog ‘A’ Divisoin League rugby encounter played at Havelock Park yesterday under floodlights. Havelocks led 10-7 at half time.

Havelocks SC started off well with their forwards and back division combining well to dominate the first half while the Sailors made a number of mistakes and lost the momentum of the game for a while.

Havelocks opened scoring almost with the kick off when fly half Dulaj Perera put over a penalty.

Then in the 10th minute, Havelocks scored their first try when Dulaj Perera beat several defenders and scored. Perera himself put over the conversion to make it 10-0.

In the 26th minute, a Havelock player knocked on in their goal line and off the ensuing five-yard scrum Navy scored through lock forward Kalana Amarasinghe who touched down. Reza Mubarak gave them the extra points and the score read 10-7 at the ‘breather’.

After the turn over, Navy came back strongly when Mubarak put over a penalty to level the score 10-all.

A minute later, Havelocks’ Dulaj Perera put over a penalty to put them in the lead once again at 13-10.

But Navy came back strongly through their foreign player Nai Kasaulio who scored under the posts to give Navy a 17-13 win with Reza Mubarak putting over the easy conversion and the Sailors ran out worthy winners by 17-13 to remain in contention for Dialog ‘A’ Division League rugby title.