The second oldest schools rugby encounter in the country came out to be another sizzling battle at Bamba last afternoon when the unbeaten Peterites locked horns with their first ever rugby counterparts in 1932 – Royal College.
Celebrating the long standing relationship on the rugby field also the close association between these two leading schools, both on and off the field, a Memorial Cup has been introduced from this year onwards for the Royal Vs. St. Peter’s 1st XV Rugby encounter. The Cup will be named the ‘B.C. Anghie Cup’ in memory of (late) B.C. Anghie who was a master at both schools, St. Peters from 1929-1936 and at Royal from 1936–1954. This is donated by his sons, spearheaded by Captain Anthony (Tony) Anghie who played for Royal College 1st XV in 1948-49.
Peterites led by Shan Weerakkody ran in to the middle of their home grounds with lot of confident on a gloomy Friday afternoon. But Rimzi Jamaldeen’s men were on a different mission. After losing their first match to Science College and scraping though the Kingswoodians in their last outing it was clear that Rimzi was geared with his polished boots to kick Royal to victory.
The game began with lot of pace and power when both sides went in to attack whenever they had procession of the ball. In the 5th minute Royal captain – Rimzi Jamaldeen booted an easy penalty to give a royal the lead with 3 points.
Peterites attacked as usual by running the ball to the corners …but the royal defense stood strong to stop their opponents from scoring. The first try of the match came from a clearance kick made by the Peterite center – Dilanka Perera which was well followed and collected inches from the 40 meter touch line with a lucky bounce by the Pete winger – Shannon Direckz who covered 60 meters to touch down under the post. It was an easy conversion for Jerome Canute to give St.Peter’s the lead. 7 to 3.
The Peterite scrum half did give a hard time to his skipper Shan Weerakkody with some poor low passing many times from the base. However Shan executed a ploy where he looped his first in – Canute and Dummied a scissor with his second center – Dilanka and off loaded beautifully to Kevin Dixon who side stepped few defenders wrong foot to score on the mid left. Canute made no mistake in the conversion and Peterites extended their lead to 14 points to 3.
With this healthy lead in the scoreboard – Peterites looked relaxed and committed too many mistakes in breakdowns and Rimzi Jamaldeen took advantage by booting 2 back to back penalties before and after the half time whistle to make their score to 9 points.
The second half began with Peterites attacking the Royal half and off loading the ball in every given opportunity. However the procession was lost by poor ball handling by the Peterites on many occasions.
In the 60th Minute Royal cleared the ball from their 22 when it was well collected by the Peterite replacement winger Praveen De Silva who ran across the line and knocked on the ball when the Royal winger collected and touched under the post to give Royal their first try. Rimzi’s boots had an easy conversion to give Royal a slender lead of 2 points where the score board was 16 to 14 in favour of the Reid Avenue boys.
The body language of the Peterites showed that they never wanted to waste a second from this point onward. They took the kickoff within second from that conversion and kept Royal in the back foot by attacking from time to time when the Peterites line formed an overlap and the Peterite center Nishon Perera sliced few defenders to score in the right corner flag. Even though St.Peter’s led 19 to 16 from this try Rimzi’s boots were ticking the score board for Royal when he booted another penalty to level the scores 19 all in the 72nd minute.
The Peterites pressed their last 10 minute magic button from now on even though they were down to 13 men when two of their players were sin binned for prior warned infringements.
With 8 minutes more to the game Royalist were on a mission and did not want to slow down. They started punching holes in to the Peterite half when they were penalized by the referee for not being on their feet. This is when the Pete Power Horse No-8 Anuradha Herath took a quick tap in a flash from the 50 and ran through the entire Royal pack when the Royalists were back peddling 10 meters with their heads down. Even the referee took couple of seconds to realize that the Peterite player had already taken the tap and was on his way to score under the post. Canute had no mistake with the conversion to give Peterites the lead with 26 points to 19 with less than 5 minutes to go.
The Blue, white and gold icing on the cake was on after 4 minutes later when the Peterite captain decided touch down to seal the game for St.Peter’s. Final score line 31 to 19.
Hats off to both teams for dishing out some fast open rugby and keeping the spectators alive right throughout the game.
Virtus et Veritas and Floreat !
