The Sri Lanka Air Force took on SL Police at Air Force grounds in the Dialog Club Rugby league game last evening where SL Police beat Air Force 20 to 11.
Air Force entered with an advantageous point with the game taking place at their home grounds. Arshad Jamaldeen’s commenced proceedings for the Police with first points coming from a penalty. With these three points within the first ten minutes of the game, SL police was off to a dominant start.
Next instant Apisala Naqawelu was able to score the first try of the game. Adding 7 points to the Police spell this try was converted against the winds bringing the total to a 10 while Air Force was struggling to put up a score.
Before the half time Police was able to score their second try of the game, Roco Nasoni bringing in the a converted try,the total was up by another 7 points to a 17. At the same time, Erandha Ranawera of Air Force spotting a weak point in the defense line was able to get off the score with their first try. Unfortunately with the strong winds opposing the try remained unconverted.
Arshad for Police was back in attack with another penalty after a few minutes. It was a very close one. Yet the Police were lucky enough to score this last penalty before the half time while the winds were still in their favor. The half time wrapped up with Police scoring and impressive 20 to Air Forces’ 5 points.
Both teams came up with a new approach to the second half of the game. Police had to bring in strong defense to prevent any tries being scored since Air Force was having an advantage over penalties. And as strong a team, Police did stick to this exact game plan. No tries were scored by Air Force but they managed to recover the score with two penalties. These two penalties for the Air Force were scored by Charith Senevirathne.
As much effort was put in by both the teams the ending as obvious. With strong backs guarding the try line, Air Force had no choice but settle for a couple of penalties, but they were not good enough to turn the game in their favor.
