It was coming of age for Sri Lanka Rugby per se when the Sailors brought down the hill capital pride Kandy Sports club in a gruelling and enthralling Rugby passage at Nittawela this evening, beating them 21 – 14 amidst a packed crowd where home advantage may have even been with the visitors.
A game which every rugby enthusiast looked at with mouth-watering anticipation, a crowd of over 7000 spectators home and visitors flocked to the Kandy Sports Club complex delivering a highly charged atmosphere for rugby. There were reports that queues were formed early on in the afternoon and yet Navy bus loads filled up the stadium.
The first session of play began with crucial cardinal errors being committed by the Kandy players paving way to the Nuwan Hettiarachchi to full-fill boot duties at three different occasions. Much to the relief of the home crowd, he missed all of them. Taking advantage of the demoralizing state that early in the game, the Kandy stand- off Fatanu Fili exploited available occasions to kick three successive penalties of 50m, 40m and 22m successfully to take the home side to an early head start with scores 9-0.
Navy kept possession earlier on, and both teams made several breakthroughs; the home side had to opt for the goal posts as evading the Navy defense seemed somewhat impossible taking to note their play this evening. In the sailors terminology they utilized all of its light weight weapons in its armory but with the call for lemons came in their artillery. For thus far, the home team had possessed the antidote for their center Stefano but now let loose, he ran circles around the Kandyan defense to draw first blood for the team in the 32nd minute.
With Hettiarachchi getting it over this time around, the visitors reduced their deficit to a mere two points before the call for lemons. With just minutes off towards the start of the second half, Navy’s artillery Stefano amazed the bizarre Kandy defense for try #2 for the Sailors. From that point fourth came in the Sailors dominance which more or less gave them the mojo to go forward towards victory. Kandy seemed to lose confidence and there in allowed further dominance of the visitors.
Navy kicked another three more off the boots of Nuwan Hettiarachchi to extend their lead to make it an inevitable victory at Nittawela. The hosts who had got the momentum wrong from the start of the second half were set back in a awe of pressure with the moaning and shouts coming all over the spectator gallery. The second half was a messy game for Kandy as they fumbled most of their passes and set plays. Even with a full side with Saliya Kumara and Marija Kandy did not reach their optimum performance.
A consolation try came just before the final whistle which was through their forwards which ended the game with the scoreboard reading 21 points to 14. On the books Navy Sports Club was the better team out of the two and it was clearly seen in their game today. Kandy’s play lacked support mainly in the rucks leading to turnovers. Fly half Fatanu was having a bad day at office amidst kicking a few off his boot as he didn’t get the coordination passes correctly as he did in the previous two occasions. Due credit should go to Stefano who was the foundation behind Navy’s success today. His capabilities were beyond hold and he made the difference between the two sides.
Final Score Kandy (1T,3P) 14 v Navy (2T,1C,3P) 14-21
With this win, the Sailors remain unbeaten while the Kandy need to work on their stereotype plays for the upcoming games. They will require lot more than this if they have the slightest intention of taking back the crown to the hill city.
