St.Joseph’s College strengthened their Milo-Knockout Trophy championship hopes as they claimed a deserved 23-10 win over Kingswood College at the Sugathadasa Stadium earlier this evening. However, Kingswood led 10-9 giving the Joes a slight scare going into the halftime break amidst the huge crowd present at the grounds.
As expected, this was an entertaining affair with plenty of end-to-end action, especially from the Kingswoodians who played an expansive style of rugby, and although they were competitive throughout, the Josephians eventually got the rub of the green.
In the topsy-turvy match, in which the lead changed hands several times, the Joes made less unforced errors, conceded the lesser number of penalties as they eventually outscored their hosts 23 points to 10 with Santhush Algama leading the way with the boot.
St.Joseph’s had the better of the opening exchanges and opened the scoring in the early minutes courtesy of a Santhush Algama penalty after Apoornajith the Kingswood flanker was blown up for hands in the ruck.
Kingswood soaked up the pressure of the exchanges following up the restart and struck back soon after as Thumula Waligampola cantered in for the opening try, running onto a well-timed pass from Sachintha Senevirathne close to the try line. Waligampola stood out Gemunu Chethiya rushing in for the cover tackle on his way to the try line. Hirusha Sampath missed his conversion attempt from the right flank which gave his side a 5-3 lead and that try gave the visitors plenty of confidence as they were the dominant side for the next 20 minutes. (SJC 03-05 KCK)
Just before the half hour mark, the Joes were dealt a huge blow when Kavinda Keshan received a card. He was lucky to have only got a yellow for a dangerous no arms shoulder tackle on Hirusha Sampath.
Oozing off the confidence Kingswood continued to attack, and on the stroke of the half hour mark they caught their opponents by surprise when Asiri Senevirathne played quickly from a penalty close to the half way mark weaved his way through neatly combining with his counter center partner Sachintha Senevirathne offloading to Apoornajith the flanker, who got a pass out of the back of his hand out to Hirusha Sampath, who finally dotted down in the left-hand corner. Sampath failed to add the extras. (SJC 03-10 KCK)
However, playing with the wind behind their backs the Josephians came back into the game through two Santhush Algama penalties from similar locations of the opposition half as Kingswood who were conceding penalties at a rate provided them the opportunity, first for having hands in the ruck and the second for not rolling away. The Referee brought the game to lemons at 10-9 in favor of Kingswood without hesitation as Kingswood squandered a golden opportunity right in the Josephian red zone.
Half Time; St.Joseph’s 9(3P) – 10(2T) Kingswood
St.Joseph’s were fastest out of the blocks in the second half and were rewarded in the 45th minute when Theeraka Santhush crossed the whitewash after running onto a pass from Rashen Gunawardana deep inside the Kingswood 22.
Algama landed the conversion which meant the Joes went into the lead, a first in the game and were in control with a 6-point lead.
The rest of the half was an arm wrestle as both teams had chances to score further tries but a combination of solid defense and some handling errors meant the sides cancelled each other out during this period. Kingswood were a touch unlucky to have not scored along with the amount of penalties they were gifting the Joes to get out of trouble after having been put under pressure. However, the Joes dominated the latter stages of the game, and sealed their win in the 68th minute when Gemunu Chethiya ran onto a pass from Rashen Gunawardana, close to the halfway mark, and beat three defenders before passing to Devapriya inside the red zone running into traffic and the diminutive winger Kavinda Keshan had an easy run-in for his try. And with the conversion landing on target the referee blew the long whistle sending Joseph’s into the Milo Knock-out finals.
Full Time; St.Joseph’s 23 (2T 2C 3P) – 10 (2T) Kingswood
- ThePapare.com player of the Match – Santhush Algama (SJC)
Score Breakdown
St.Joseph’s – Kavinda Keshan (1T), Theeraka Santhush (1T), Santhush Algama (2C 3P)
Kingswood – Thumula Waligampola (1T), Hirusha Sampath (1T)Yellow Cards – Kavinda Keshan, Cheka Jayawardana (SJC) , Pathuma Weerasinghe (KCK)
