Wesley College took a huge step closer towards winning the Plate Championship when they defeated Dharmaraja College by a convincing margin of 39 points to 12 points in their Singer Inter Schools Under-20 League rugby tournament fixture worked off at the Bogambara Stadium in Kandy on Saturday.
The Wesleyites always looked the better side from the kick off as they dominated the proceedings and went on to complete their task while collecting their points from two goals and five tries with Dharmaraja College responding with one goal and a try.
This victory has also helped Wesley College to set up a massive showdown along with St. Anthony’s College Katugastota with the clash between these two unbeaten teams next week in Kandy certain to decide the winners of the Singer Inter Schools Plate Championship.
Wesley’s success also had a great amount of significance considering the fact that they had the satisfaction of overcoming last year’s ‘A’ division league champions while performing away from home.
In fact the Rajans never looked like causing a major threat to the Wesleyites who started off with a great amount of confidence as they went on to build up commanding 24-7 lead at half time.
This was also a vast improvement from the Wesley outfit following their tough confrontation against C. W. W. Kannangara MMV Borella last week where they managed to pull off a hard fought victory at the end.
But this time Wesley College had all their key players in the lineup and they got their act together well and ensured that there will be no contest from the opposition until the final whistle.
Even then playmaker Joel Thilakaratne was yet not at his best as he is still recovering from an injury and probably was preserving his energy and the best for the more important game against St. Anthony’s College next week.
However another star player Sithum Peiris had an outstanding game as he controlled the situation from the base of the scrum and kept his three quarters feeding with some good ball most of the time.
In fact Sithum Peiris led the way while scoring their first try of the match from a beautiful three quarter move with full back Lahiru Prasad also forming the overlap after they had initiated the move from their own territory.
This was followed by two splendid tries from the dynamic centre Chamika Amarathunga who displayed tremendous skill and power on both occasions to simply outsmart his opposite numbers and fall over almost under the post.
The Wesleyites continued to pound the Rajans in the second half as well and added three more tries to the tally through Lahiru Prasad (2) and Ishara Madushan who covered a good 25 meres to score under the post.
Wesley College could have even won the game by a more convincing margin but their place kicker Lahiru Prasad was successful in adding the extra points to only two of their seven tries.
Dharmaraja College of course was trailing throughout the game and they could manage to score only a try during each half.
