Spearheaded by an inspired second half rally coupled with a brilliant individual effort by skipper and former Trinity captain centre Tharinda Ratwatte helped CR&FC to record an improbable 38 points ( five goals, one penalty) to 23 ( two goals, three penalties) win over Navy in their second match in the Dialog ‘A’ division league rugby match at Longden Place yesterday.
Navy were sailing smoothly with a comfortable 23 -7 lead at the breather but suddenly found themselves in trouble waters as the ‘red shirts’ suddenly found their fluency in the second half. CR&FC did not look the winning side during the initial stages of the game as the sailors dominated the proceedings in no uncertain terms.
The ‘red shirts’ lacked cohesion and their defence was weak amidst the marauding sailors who opened scoring early through Faleel and Thilina Weerasinghe adding the extra points. But center Tharinda Ratwatte found the equaliser for CR&FC soon by touching down and adding the extra points himself.
Navy came back strongly when they were awarded at least four penalties within a short period of time as CR erred. Navy full back gladly accepted the fairly straight forward kicks and put over three of them to take a16 -7 lead. Then Navy who clearly looked the winning outfit at that moment further consolidated their lead when full back Thilina Weerasinghe touched down and he himself fired over the conversion.
Navy led 23-7 at half time.
On resumption CR&EC looked a completely transformed side. They played with better understanding and enforced tremendous pressure and rattled the sailors. Their forwards and the back division formed a lethal combination and they were unstoppable. Tharinda Ratwatte played a pivotal role in attack and defence . Supun Warnakulasuriya and Vageesha Weerasinghe touched down twice through some judicious moves and Ratwatte made no mistakes with the conversions. Ratwatte fired over a penalty to put CR&FC in the lead 24-23.
Navy had a chance of forging ahead but Thilina Weerasinghe missed a vital penalty. However, it did not make any difference to the outcome of the match as CR&FC went on to plant two more tries through Ratwatte and Vageesha Weerasekera which both were given the finishing touches by skipper Tarinda Ratwatte.
Rohan Fernando refereed.