St. Peters emerged victorious in the inaugural B.C. Anghie Cup after beating Royal 31-19 in a hard fought encounter at Bambalapitiya.
Both teams put up valiant efforts to entertain a capacity crowd, keeping up to the emerging trend when considering past encounters.
Rimze Jamaldeen started the scoring early in the game with an easy penalty due to the Peterites being penalised for hands in the ruck. Almost immediately, the home side had an opportunity to equalize which was scuffed by Jerome Canute.
The Peterites continued to pile on the pressure early on, and it took a superlative defensive performance by Royal to keep the marauding Petes at bay, which eventually led to the Royalists gaining momentum and territory.
After a strong Royal attack, the Peterite defence retrieved the ball, and kicked it out to safety. Fortunately for the home team, Shellon Direckze who did the good work in chasing kick, managed to make the maximum use of a lucky bounce into his hand, which bamboozeled the unsuspecting Royal fullback Bhanuka Gamage . Direckze out ran the fullback, and managed to score the first try of the game under the post, which was converted by Jerome Canute. The try was definitely against the run of play but would have been whole- heartedly accepted by the Peterites who had the upper hand.
Soon afterwards, the home team who had gathered some momentum worked the ball extremely well on the counter attack with Kevin Dickson the fullback joining the line and running through the Royal defence this time, who failed to react on time leaving the Royal scrumhalf Nevaan Perera dumbfounded being the last man in defence.
Rimze put on his kicking boots once again on the stroke of half time, to reduce the deficit to eight points with an easy penalty. The Royalists had a much improved performance in contrast to their previous games especially in terms of defence, while the Peterites could have made the lead much larger had they been more clinical with possession.
Half Time: St. Peters 14 – Royal 06
The boys from Reid Avenue started off the second half in similar fashion to the first, with skipper Jamaldeen booting over another penalty. This time, the Peterites were penalised for being offside.
After consistent pressure by the Royal forwards inside the Peterite 22m, winger Udesh Ranaweera found a gaping hole in the Peterite defence, as he dashed through the centre to score under the post, with the home team unable to catch up to him. Jamaldeen added the easy extra points as the Royalists took the lead with the score on 14-16 leaving uneasy nerves within the Peterite ranks with 10 minutes to go in the game.
Matters got worse, as the uncertainty had spread among the players as well who made an abundance of handling errors much to the anguish of the Peterite supporters.
The Peterite camp breathed a huge sigh of relief when CDN Perera managed to score on the right flank in a brilliant counter attack. Canute, failed to add the extra points which left the Royalists within touching distance with five minutes left.
Much to the excitement of the Royalists, Rimze booted over his fourth penalty to level scores at 19 all as the game was coming to a spectacular close.
It was none other than, the brilliant Anuradha Herath who has been a player to look out for this season that provided the breakthrough for the home team who were put back into the lead, and the game turned around dramatically.
Captain and Flyhalf Shan Weerakkody put the game to bed with his only try of the game, as the Royalists were left dumbstruck at the end of the final whistle. The game lived up to its reputation, as in the recent past these two teams have provided exciting nail biters. The Royalists will take some heart in terms of their performance, as the score-line does not entirely reflect the actual scenario in terms of who dominated the game entirely.
The Peterites on the other hand will be extremely pleased to continue with their unbeaten run in the league, and also bag the inaugural B.C. Anghie Cup.
Full Time: St. Peters 31 – Royal 19
