Isipathana College continued their dream season as they overcame bowl division champions Thurstan College by 50 points to 5 in the milo knockout tournament at the Royal complex. League division champs collected their points through 8 tries, 5 conversations to a solitary try scored by Thurstan.
Thurstan College kicked off and had good ball possession in the opening minutes of the game through their forwards. However after a penalty won by Isipathana they attacked from their own half through a lineout and formed a maul and number 8 Omalka gunarathne broke open and shrugged off five Thurstan players to score a superb try and extras were added by W.A Dilshan. (IC 07 TC 00)
That was the start of the Pathana onslaught. A moment later Isipathana won a penalty and skipper Shenal silva took a quick tap and passed it to Omalka who burst through a couple of players and then offloaded it to second row Dilshan to do the finishing touches by scoring comfortably and he added the extras as well. (IC 14 TC 00)
The league champions and sevens champions were ruthless in their defense and attack as they dominated play and should have added more points on the board but failed in the five meter line of the opposition side where they made crucial errors . A minute later Isipathana won another penalty and it was a pick and go move that was executed to perfection by prop forward A.K Darling who was too strong for the opposite numbers and scored his team’s third try and conversion was missed by Dilshan. (IC 19 TC 00)
A moment later where Iisipathana were working the ball and it was given to the” go to man” no 08 Omalka Gunarathne who easily fended off four Thurstan players to score a comfortable try and extras were added by Dilshan.( IC 26 TC 00) A minute later A.G Punchihewa the Isipathana winger who collected a short pass from the blind side and had the overlap and brilliantly scored in the far corner and extras were added by Dilshan. (IC 33 TC 00)
Then, came a moment of brilliance and probably, moment to forget for Omalka He first collected the ball and shrugged off three Thurstan players like they were non-existent and while he was on his way to the try line, as he was just about to ground the ball inside the try line a Thurstan player who didn’t give up the chase tackled Omalka from behind making the ball pop out of his hands to knock it forward. With that missed opportunity the half time whistle was blown.
Half Time =( IC 33 TC 00)
Isipathana kicked off the second half and continued to dominate as they did in the first half. However the underdogs Thurstan surprisingly had a lot of possession in the opposite half. As things got a tad bit out of hand for the league champs, their skipper Shenal silva was sin binned for 10 minutes as took a Thurstan player off in the air in the line out. It was an opportunity for Thurstan to get some points on the board with Isipathana down to 14 men. It was encouraging to see Isipathana challenging the opposite scrums with minus one player in the team.
With fourteen men on the ground, still the tries were coming thick and fast for arguably the most exciting team of the season, Isipathana as they scored through a well worked line out and quickly formed a rolling maul and comfortably scored through second row W A Dilshan. And second row added the extras as well. ( IC 40 TC 00) The second half belong to one man and that was W A Dilshan who got his hat trick of tries by collecting a pass from the ruck to spot a gap in the opposite defense but he could not add the extras.( IC 45 TC 00)
A Moment later Isipathana second row Dilshan who was involved in almost every move scored his fourth try by taking a quick tap and bursting through the opposite defense to round off a man of the match performance as he took over the kicking from the usual kicker Kongahawatte. The second row could not add the extras( IC 50 TC 00)
Just seconds to go Thurstan won a penalty in the isipathana half and opted to go for a line out that proved to be a good decision as off a ruck they eventually scored to the joy of the their supporters. The try came through fly half Chathuranga. Unfortunately the fly half missed the conversation ( IC 50 TC 05)
It was a sublime performance by Isipathana College who have already won the league and sevens trophies respectively. With this kind of ruthless performance it won’t be a surprise if they add the Milo knockout trophy to round off a dream season.
Papare man of the match = W A Dilshan
Refree = Dimithra Gunasekera
