Dharmaraja College, Kandy, promoted from B Division this year continued their giant killing performance, and this time they nosed down one time table leaders St. Peter’s College, Colombo 24 points (3 goals, 1 penalty) to 17 (1 goal, 2 tries) in their schools under 19 Division One Segment A rugby tournament match played at the Bogambara Stadium, Kandy yesterday. At half time Rajans led 17-12.
The Rajans, once again owe their victory to their effervescent Full-back Tilina Wijesinghe whose penetrative play and excellent spot kicking turned the game in favour of the Rajans. What the Peterites lacked was an accurate place kicker and had they one, they could have won this match.
Though the Rajans won, they were in for a rough time especially in the last 20 minutes of play when the Peterites stormed into the game, putting Rajans on the defensive. They were there for a full 20 minutes and tried their best to score but luck was not with them. They formed at least five scrums inside the Rajans ’22′ but it did not yield any result as their opponent’s defence held. It was a great escape for the Rajans.
With the game barely three minutes old the Rajans took an early lead when a Peterite player was penalised for going over the ruck and Rajans Full-back Wijesinghe put over a 41-metre penalty.
But the Peterites hit back to take over the lead when Fullback Kevin Dixon join the three-quarters to score mid right but the conversion was missed.
It was only a matter of time before the Rajans took over when Full-back Wijesinghe foxed the Peter’s defence with a chip and collected the ball and scored under the post and added the extra points himself, to help his team lead 10-5.
In the 34th minute the Rajans scored again when the three-quarters moved the ball and centre Tharindu Kulawansa scored near the posts and Wijesinghe added the extra points.
With three minutes to go for lemons the Peterites reduced the lead when centre Shallen Direksz collecting the ball from stand off Weerakkody made a fiery run to score near the posts and Jerome Canute this time added the extra points.
After the teams changed ends, the Rajans scored their third try with the three-quarters seen in action once again and centre Buwaneka Udangamuwa scoring mid left and Wijesinghe adding the extra points.
From here onwards the rest of the match belonged to the Peterites as they ploughed into the Rajans defence for a good 20 minutes and they were able to breach the opponents defence only once when lock former Timothy Alles scored near the posts and Jerome Canute added the extra points.
Dilroy Fernando refereed.
