Royal were never going to keel over and gift the Hayman to St. Thomas’ on Saturday at the Sugathadasa Stadium pool. Those days are past. Now it’s a real contest. Buoyed by their come back win from two years ago Royal started the game off brightly.
A two goal cushion isn’t always great, but it’s better than one, and with Royal scoring first and Wasalage having a super day alternating in the centre forward position the Royalists took command of the first half.
Aqeel Sourjah, the chief defender for STC fouled out early, and Shakya Gunathilaka did a good job coming into the heart of defence. Nevertheless, Royal attacked desperately and their nothing to lose attitude yielded great results. Rifat Uwais was outstanding in defence, successfully marking the dangerous Sachitha Jayathilaka out of the game. The young prop needs to improve his work rate to get into good positions to receive the ball as Kahandawala seemed to be the only one who had the subtlety to find him in threatening attacks.
Ashane Francis scored a repeat of his first goal from last week with a fabulous teed shot that Walid Uwais could do nothing about, despite knowing it was coming. From then on goals were traded on both ends except for one moment when Royal went 4-2 ahead towards half time. STC came back through skipper Dheelaka Weeraratne who played admirably through a serious nerve and shoulder injury to bang in four excellent goals. With the goals not coming through Jayathilaka or from exclusions, Weeraratne took the responsibility and kept his team in the game.
Late on, it was two crucial goals from Munasinghe who took calculated risk, and Gunathilaka who hassled Asalarachchi into a costly mistake that changed the momentum to STC. Knowing that they needed three goals to win, Royal lost their confidence, and S. Thomas’ finished stronger, and Kahanadawala found his captain to put the game beyond doubt.
Goalkeeper Kosala Wijewardena won the MVP award, and came up with some excellent saves in the first leg. His performance in the second leg was not as spectacular but there was one miracle save from close range. That he was the superior goal keeper was never in doubt, but there were some outstanding performances from Thomian players Munasinghe, Kahandadawala and the captain that also helped win the Hayman. Royal can be proud for being part of probably the most high quality Hayman encounter in the series yet. The skills on show from both sets of players were excellent, while there were no shot clock turnovers showing the awareness of both teams.
This standard is a direct result of SLWP’s efforts over the last year, and they have learned from the drubbing at the Asian Water Polo Cup this time last year, to make incremental adjustments to the game that resulted in a wildly entertaining, skillful, uncontroversial match.
Contrast this with the inaugural Bishop’s v Visakha encounter on Monday and the controversy surrounding officiating continues. While the players improve it is vitally important the standards of refereeing – as is the need in rugby – improves as well. Referees Lim and Lee from Singapore and Malaysia did a good job with the whistle at the Hayman which was one of the main reasons why the match was played at such a high tempo and skill level. To say that local referees are below this standard is not unfair. And with the players getting better this is one are that needs dramatic improvement as well.
