A highly motivated and spirited Trinity College team turned the inter-school League rugby tournament on its head as they subjugated Royal College to a 13-10 defeat in their group stage League match that also brought them victory in the first leg of the Bradby Shield match at Pallekele here in Kandy yesterday.
Surprisingly Trinity played as the better team especially in the second half despite trailing 0-10 at the end of the first half and never gave up or lost hold of the game at any stage.
Trinity even embarrassed Royal and stalled all their attempted trademark rolling mauls from the start of play to mean business that they were never going to cave in.
Royal had it tough and tougher since they lost to St. Peter’s College more than a month ago and in all probability with their second defeat in the League may kiss the coveted inter-school championship good-bye.
Royal, thanks to a try in the 12th minute of play by fullback Kalyaniratne who joined the line and sneaked across to touch down for an unconverted try, took a 5-0 lead after Trinity’s forwards stalled a rolling maul. Ten minutes before the end of the first half Royal took a 10-0 lead when their big second rower Bhuvenaka Senanayake went over for a try off a loose maul a few feet away.
Even though Trinity could not have six points on the board as their 16-year old place-kicker Shan Althaf missed two penalty kicks from a kickable range, there was nothing to discourage the home team from keeping their spirits alive as they came out for the second half with their heads raised high.
Trinity missed what should have been their first try in the opening minutes of the second half when centre Lakindu Herath crossed the line and dropped the ball after Royal knocked-on in their own 22 and the ball came Trinity’s way.
But Althaf spurred on Trinity with his first success with the boot as he knocked over a penalty followed by their Number Eight Thisanga Dissanayake doing the honours with a try as the forwards kept up the pressure on the Royal pack in the absence of Royal’s Bhuvenaka Senanayake who was yellow carded and kept out for 10 minutes.
Althaf converted the try making the scores 10-10 and Trinity sealed the result with the clock showing less than three minutes of play left when Althaf landed a straight- forward penalty for his team to finish worthy winners 13-10.
Referee Ishanka Abeykoon