Kandy Sports Club was given a tough time by a fighting Police outfit before winning their Dialog ‘A’ division inter-club league rugby second round match by 34 (4 tries, 4 conversions, 2 penalties) to 23 (3 tries, 1 conversion, 2 penalties) at Police Park yesterday.
The winners led 31-8 at half time.
Police dished out a superb brand of running rugby and gave a torrid time to Kandy SC throughout the entire second half but a penalty by full back Thilina Wijesinghe just before the final whistle cost them the match. Kandy scored four tries through scrum half Srinath Sooriyabandara, winger
Dansha Dayan and fly half Fazil Marija with Wijesinghe converting all four tries to go along with a 30- metre penalty.
Police closed down the gap with a brilliant unconverted try scored by number eight Radeesha Seneviratne and full back Rajitha Sansoni’s penalty just before half time. After the break Police scored a spectacular try through winger Reeza Rafaideen who went through the Kandy defence to score with Sansoni making no mistake with the conversion. Sansoni later put over a 40-metre penalty to take the score to 31-18 in Kandy’s favour.
Police scored again through seasoned campaigner cum second row forward Archirige to close the gap to 31-23. Sansoni missed the conversion. Kandy sealed the match when Wijesinghe put over the 30-metre penalty to make the final score 34-23.
Referee: Irshad Cader.