Isipathana College took time to settle down and ran up a comprehensive 39 points (6 tries, 3 conversions, a penalty) to 10 (a try, a conversion and a penalty) victory over Zahira College in the semi-final of the Dialog schools knock-out rugby encounter at Havelock Park yesterday.
Zahira put up a strong defensive style of play in the first half that kept Isipathana guessing as to what they should do to collect their points.
Isipathana often did not handle the ball too well and spilling it at vital moments deprived them of gaining the advantage.
Zahira also used their burly forwards to good use early in the game to penetrate the Isipathana defence time and again but could not cross the line as much as they would have liked.
Isipathana enjoyed a lot of possession through their heavy forwards and their three quarters posed the danger to Zahira defence.
Zahira opened scoring in the third minute when an attempt to clear the ball by Isipathana skipper and fly half Kanishka saw Aqeel Mashoor charge the ball down and ran some 35 metres before passing out to Aadil Rafeek who went over the line.
Ahamed Saad made certain of the easy conversion to take a 7 point lead. Isipathana hit back in the 14th minute and winger Hashen Randimal went over for their first try which Rinesh Silva failed to convert. But he put over a penalty to make the 8-7 in favour of Isipathana.
Isipathana scored a try five minutes later when they won a loose maul and winger Hashen Randimal went over for his second try and Silva missed the conversion as Isipathana led 13-7.
On the stroke of half time Zahira was given a penalty for a dangerous tackle and Saad kicked right to make the scored 13-10.
The second half saw Isipathana dominate proceedings and they scored four more tries.
The first was scored by centre Chamod Chirath followed by Number Eight Nisaja Jayaweera barging over to score.
Chamath Irishan and Avishka Hiran also crossed the line for tries.
Kicking at goal was taken over by Naveen Kanishka who put over two conversions while Niran Avishka converted his own try to give Isipathana an overall score of 39 points.
Raveen Alexander refereed.