Isipathana College Colombo and Trinity College Kandy went through a grueling two days of fast rugby to arrive at the finals of the School’s sevens knock-outs. Both teams took the field with a loud roar from the spectators as it was the first real clash of the season and it was looked forward to with relish.
Speedster Sudam Sooriarachchi was on fire touching down a hat trick of tries for Isipathana College before Trinity College Kandy could find their feet. Isipathana went on a rampage at Royal Sports Complex to bag under-19 Schools’ Rugby Sevens Cup Championship beating the generally tough Trinity outfit by 22 points (one goal, three tries) to nil.
Isipathana were sinbinned earlier on in the match and were reduced to 6 players. However, playing aggressive Rugby Isipathana began to dominate the opposition quickly. Sudam scored the first try under the post for Isipathana but his conversion went astray leaving the Colombo school 5-0 first up.
Umalka Gunaratne dodged the opposition defense to score the next try for Pathana in the left corner. The conversion missed the uprights again and at the half time whistle Pathana held sway 10-0.
While Isipathana had displayed masterful control over the game in the first half, it was expected that the strong Kandy side would make a fighting come back. But the second half caused even more damage to the Kandy lads and they were left hapless to counter the hostile Pathanians.
Soon after Trinity too was reduced to 6 players over a sin bin matter and that compounded problems for them.
Sudam brought up his second try whizzing past the Trinity defense once again to touch down. Isipathana missed that conversion as well. Trinity continued to fight to penetrate but the Isipathana defense remained a fortress.
Isipathana went on to score their 3rd try when Sudam dodged Trinity yet again to run 40 meters to touch down in the right corner. At last Isuru Kangahawatte was successful in the conversion and Isipathana closed the game 22-0.
Previously in the tournament :
The semi-finals in the Cup segment saw some exciting fare with the top schools competing with each other to get a birth in the final. Isipathana faced up with St Joseph’s where they beat them 7-0 while Trinity defeated St Peter’s 19-17.
Earlier in the day the Plate championship was worked off between Wesley College and Kingswood College. Wesley defeated Kingswood 15-12 scoring 3 tries and Kingswood one goal and one try in the final.
In the Bowl championship C.W.W. Kannangara Vidyalaya, sent Prince of Wales into smithereens beating them by 28 points to nil – four converted tries.
Lalith Athulathmudali MV, Mount Lavinia walked away with the Shield scoring 12 points – one goal and one try to the 7 points – one goal of Panadura Royal in the bottom half of the competition.
Tournament Results in brief :
Cup – Isipathana beat Trinity 22-0
Plate – Wesley beat Kingswood 15-12
Bowl – C WW Kannangara beat Prince of Wales 28-0
Shield – Lalith Athulathmudali beat Panadura Royal 12- 7
