A clinical display by the heroes of the hill capital in the second phase of the Dialog Club Rugby vs the Longden place lads from Colombo was witnessed in their last home game when Kandy decimated CR & FC 44-00.
The scorecard reading a nil value on the opposition does not indicate the splendid game of rugby which took place at Nittawela this evening. The bond and rivalry between these two clubs goes down the ages as the Ceylonese and the Kandyans have had tight battles in all of the past encounters in the bygone years. Kandy high on the back of two consecutive wins on home turf against two heavyweights in the tourney were all set to combat the red army.
Kandy this evening made a considerable amount of changes with the intention of experimenting a change in gameplay tactics. Richard Dharmapala started in as half back switching his place with skipper Roshan Weeraratna while the stronghold Samisoni made the bench as the new Tongan Sailosi Tagickabau started as NO 8. Kandy were missing their key man in the pack Sean Wijesinghe which paved way for a new third row player to debut for Kandy. The visitors on the other side had Murad Ramzeen back as hooker and Rahul De Silva, Pium Jayasinghe starting in the bench. The prominent Rizah Mubarak was absent from the side due to an illness.
It was evident that coach La’ga and his management have done their background study on the counterparts and they enacted to attack through the line knowing the likes of the forceful Kandy pack. Kandy playing with a completely different outfit foxed that plan and this paved way for the quarter backs of CR to use their feet to gain territory which they did at given points. Kandy’s game play revolved around their overseas duo Hallefouna and Samisoni. But with Samisoni not making in the starting line, Hallefouna was struggling in triggering his breakthroughs. He failed twice; one through Roshan Weeraratna and the other with Sailosi. Amongst these futile efforts, Hallefouna drew first blood for the home boys with an easy penalty which he kicked without hesitation towards the 20th minute of play.
The visitors who were at full swing had momentum upon their side with the two foreigners Lafaele and Aitui doing most of the business. Kandy almost scored twice but with some clear defensive play, all such attempts were messed with by the CR lads giving in their maximum to defend their line. CR had two instances to level scores towards the final 10 minutes of play but Rimze Jamaldeen did not quite get hold of either of it.
With lemons ending with only a single penalty to separate the two sides, many expected the game to have a tight call but predictions were sadly not quite right. Coach Ferris fielded in his top lad Samisoni and the other starting men back in and Kandy startied yielding from that point. Hallefouna triggered the first of the comebacks, with minutes in to the second half with his usual offload to his outer center Gayan Weeraratna who scored the first for Kandy. Easy conversion gave them a two figure lead of 10 points.
Right after the restart Kandy’s lock Asitha Ratnayaka cleanly collected the ball passing it through to Fazil Marija who did the rest of the honors covering over 40m to score the next. With no extras, added, it gave the fans in the ground the forecast that Kandy was on the verge for another mammoth stand.
Tries came flooding from all over the place with the next two tries being affected through the front line mauls where Dinuka Perera and Asitha Ratnayaka did the honors. Hallefouna as usual had time to crossover in the 26th minute of play where he adhered to his spectacular ward offs to score the fifth for the side on the right corner.
Kandy fielded in almost all of its replacement players and Richard Dharmapala being switched to his legitimate position of wing three crossed over for his share in the numbers as he side stepped his way through the right corner line showcasing his typical form of play. While the second half rained tries the try that would be etched in the minds of the Kandy spectator forever when the veteran champions Fazil Marija and Saliya Kumara stole the limelight of the evening as they perfectly executed a scissor between them covering almost 70m to score the final try to end proceedings at 44 points to nil.
As was mentioned earlier, CR fought veraciously in the first half giving in all what they had in store. This was one of the best displays of agile running and counter attacking displayed by the Colombo club in a while and to their dismay they failed to carry on their formulated attacking spree in second phase of play. The game had as many stopovers for knock on’s and faulty play by both teams but towards the end of play, the attacking nature drifted away from the visitors. Several attempts were made by Vishvamithra Jayasinghe to at least make CR put something on the scoreboard but he failed to capitalize. The new entrant, the much spoken Sailosi Tagickabau did not showcase his true value this evening and Kandy had to switch to their usual man Samisoni to the dismay of the fans.
ThePapare picks both David Hallefouna from Kandy and NO8 Nissan Aitui from CR & FC to be the champions of the day. Hallefouna was the key lad in Kandy’s attack while Aitui was held responsible for formidable attacks through his front line which supported the attacking spree in the first half.
It was a good game of rugby encrusted in true spirit as Kandy will be facing the front runner of the Dialog League Navy SC next week.
SCORE SUMMARY – KANDY 44 ( 3G 4T 1P) to CR& FC 00
