Trinity lead by Harlique Wadood emerges victorious in the 69th Bradby Shield Encounter with a 46-38 aggregate and retains the Shield for the third consecutive year.
However, the Royalists put up a valiant effort to claim the home -leg with a 13- 09 victory over the Lions as this year’s Bradby Shield ends bitter-sweet for both teams.
Tarinda Ratwatte kicked off the second leg and nearly scored the first points after a nervy Royal start led to an attempted drop goal by the Trinity fly half. The Royalists who seemed overly anxious during the Trinity ‘haka’ took time to settle down in their own half, with scrum half Nevaan Perera making a mess of a box kick.
Trinity broke the shackles through Ratwatte who slotted in an easy penalty, as the Royalists were put under pressure. However, since then it was the home team that dominated most of play even though they failed to convert their many attempts into points.
Rimze Jamaldeen opened the scoring for the boys from Reid Avenue with a blinder of a drop goal from the 35m mark. The drop goal was an interesting option by the captain that bore fruit especially after the dominance shown by the Royal forwards.
However, the visitors struck in the 15th minute, as referee Dilroy Fernando awarded Trinity a penalty penalising the Royal line for being offside. Ratwatte made no mistake in an easy attempt at goal.
Royal continued to dominate in the half, with the forwards pulling most of the strings, especially Dineth Karunarathna who stood out in this half.
Play continued to go back and forth as both teams lacked urgency in offense even though the game was played at an extremely high intensity. The Trinitians put up a commendable defensive performance which was complemented by Royal’s failure to capitalize in extremely crucial offensive positions.
The first half concluded with the visitors leading 6-3 which set the tone for a very low scoring game, even though much was expected in the second half from this capacity crowd at the Royal Complex.
Royal commenced the second half with a ‘bang’ gaining possession immediately after Rimze’s kick off. Dilroy awarded Royal the first penalty of the half, which was gleefully taken by the captain who managed to level scores at 6 a piece, with the deficit going back to 12 points.
The home team continued the good work with the forwards, but failed to apply the finishing touch as they made too many mistakes in both handling and decision making in their opponents twenty-two.
Ratwatte was the stand out player for the Trinitians, but even his best was in patches as he made life difficult for his teammates with a few wavered passes that were extremely hard to gather. Going with the run of play, Rimze tried another shot at goal, but missing the relatively more easier one when compared to the drop goal he scored previously.
The game slowly began to open up as Royal increased their urgency as both teams had to defend their hearts out to keep their opponents at bay. Royal and Trinity both put up a superlative defensive performance, that led to two try saving tackles from both sides.
Trinity took the lead once again through Ratwatte who put his third between the uprights, as pressure kept mounting on the Royalists with just 15 minutes left in the game. Trinity were in the box seat to claim the shield at this point.
The Royal forwards failed to give up even after Dineth, who had been brilliant throughout the game knocked the ball on just inches away. But a try was coming, and it finally did in the 76th minute as vice captain Shuayb Muthaliph bundled over in an absolute team effort to put Royal ahead and claim the Colombo Leg.
However, the Trinitians must be commended on a brilliant defensive performance especially when it came to countering the Royal forwards who definitely played their best game this season. Harlique Wadood who did not play the first leg due to injury, led his team with a strong performance in this game and also to win the coveted Bradby Shield.
The Trinitians will retain the Bradby Shield for the 3rd consecutive year as they won the shield by an 8 point margin in terms of the aggregate score where Trinity lead 46-38. However, this is the first match in four Bradby legs that Royal have managed to win since the 1st leg in 2011 and the first home win since 2010.
This will also be Referee Dilroy Fernando’s last game as a match official as he will retire after a 22 years’ service in which he has gone on to officiate 550 games.
