St. Peters College Colombo won the first trophy on offer for the 2013 rugby season by beating Royal College at the under 18 sevens tournament held last week.
The Peterites who have been a dominant force in the junior ranks, continued their form with a forceful 26 (4T, 3C) to 10 (2T) win after leading 19-5 at half time.
After securing an excellent offload, Kevin ‘Kutti’ Dixon, the skipper of SPC opened the score card in the very first minute of the game. But Royal College hit back with a try in the sixth minute to reduce the gap to 7-5.
Royal lost its gutsy, flamboyant style of rugby displayed during the preliminary round matches when SPC scored back-to-back tries through Kutti, who produced a superb 80-meter dash in the ninth minute to score his second try, followed by Avishka Ranasinghe, who intercepted the ball to score in the mid-left in the tenth minute.
Score reading 19-5, SPC team stood solid in defense while Royal’s play looked rather ordinary and the hopes of winning the cup for Royal, quite far-fetched.
After resumption of the second-half, Nishon Perera, who excelled throughout the tournament made a powerful 70 meter run to score the fourth try of the winners.
After giving a general warning for both teams at the beginning, SPC winger Kamesh Fernando was yellow carded for dangerous play in the mid-second-half by Referee Asela Muthumala. But still the six-man SPC team managed to keep the game under their control until Royal scored their soul consoling second try at the last stages of the game.
A 35-member pool of U18 Sevens players to represent Sri Lanka is expected to pick up in preparation for the 2nd Asian Youth Championship to be held in Nanjing, China in August 2013.
Results:
Cup quarter-finals:
St. Peter’s bt Trinity 22-17
St. Joseph’s bt Science 17-7
Royal bt Isipathana 10-5
Prince of Wales bt St. Anthony’s 36-0
Cup Semi-finals:
St. Peter’s bt St. Joseph’s 14-12
Royal bt Prince of Wales 24-0
Cup Final:
St. Peter’s bt Royal 26-10
Plate Final:
Trinity (bt Isipathna)
Bowl Final:
Carey (bt Lalith Athulathmudali MMV)
Shield Final:
St. Thomas (bt St. John’s)
Article source – SPC rugby blog
Picture credit – Ruwin Edirimuni
