Carlton Franchisee 7’s (local segment) Day 1

A great deal of rugby played at the first leg of Carlton 7’s local segment at the St. Anne’s College grounds in Kurunegala.  Even though there wasn’t a packed house on the first day there were many kids and teenagers watching the stars playing which will no doubt augur well for the future of Rugby, and is also the reason to take the Rugby out of Colombo. 

The most experienced player outfit, the Northern Gladiators started with  a convincing win in the opener over the Stallions winning it 24 – 05. Sri Lankan 7’s captain Fazil Marija’s men dominated throughout the day playing some skilful sevens rugby in pool A winning all four games.  Nippy Mithun Hapugoda was unstoppable against all the opposition.

Rohitha Rajapaksa’s Central Kings started with a strong win over his brother Yoshitha Rajapaksa’s Western Warriors team winning 33 to 00. Nigel Ratwatte and Saliya Handapangoda showed some great individual skills for Kings. However, Kings were very wobbly in the rest of the matches as they lost to the Stallions, Gladiators and Sharks.

The Warriors had a great come back with a win against Sharks and Stallions before going down to Gladiators in their last match. Defending champions Sharks on the other hand in the third place, sevens sensation Srinath Sooriyabandara played a blinder for them in the matches they won. The  Stallions and Kings sit at the bottom two of pool A as they did not fare well on the first day.

In pool B North Central Typhoons were unbeaten and top the group. Man in form Anurudda Wilwara and Waqavulagi Emori were outstanding. It was fascinating to watch Dushanth Lewke playing 7’s as he played some great defensive and attacking games helping the Typhoons with few tries to his name. North Western Blacks came second in this pool losing to Typhoons and drew with the Eastern Eagles 19 -19 in well fought encounter.  Player of the tournament in the Dialog Inter Club 7’s Sheriff Mohamed was astounding yet again causing trouble for the national selectors.  Jaffna Challengers lead by Saliya Kumara got to third place as they won two and lost two. Eastern Eagles and Uva Vipers ended up in  4th and 5th place respectively.

Winner of Pool ‘A’(Gladiators) will play 4th place of pool ‘B’ (Eagles) and winner of Pool ‘B’ (Typhoons) will play 4th in pool ‘A’ (Stallions).  Losers in these games and will play against 5th position team in pool A & B. Sharks will play with Blacks whilst Warriors take on Challengers tomorrow.

As a result the first few matches of tomorrow morning  will compete for 1st to 10th place depending on the number of points they get.

The leading try scorers in day 1 as below