Royal College thrashed S. Thomas’ College by 26 points (4 tries, 3 conversions) to 6 (2 penalties) to retain the Michael Gunaratne memorial Trophy in their 60th rugby encounter worked off at Mount Lavinia yesterday.
At half time Royal led 14 points to 3.
The match got off to a fantastic start with both teams attacking from the start as S. Thomas’ opened scoring through a penalty put over by their full back Yehan Bulathsinhalage.
Royal grabbed the lead in the 31st minute when scrum half Savithra Fernando made a break and went over the line for a try which was converted by full back Nabeel Yahiya to give Royal a 7-3 lead.
In the 35th minute Royal captain cum number eight Randul Senanayake scored a brilliant break-away try. Yahiya put over the conversion to increase their lead further to 14 points to 3.
After lemons the Thomians received a penalty in the 46th minute of play for an infringement by a Royal player and the 40 metre penalty was put over by Bulathsinhalage to cut down the deficit to 6-14.
Royal came into the second half with a different game plan and opened scoring in the 54th minute through skipper Senanayake off a rolling maul when he went over for a try which was converted by full back Yahiya from a difficult angle to increase the score to 21-6.
In the 65th minute of play Senanayake scored his third try of the day through a rolling maul and the conversion was missed by their replacement scrum half Simak Shafeed to take the score to 26-6 in favour of Royal.