Kingswood College successfully retain the L. E. Blaze Trophy for a second successive year
Racecourse came alive with an entertaining comeback from Kingswood College Kandy against Wesley College with full time scores reading 31-13 in favour of Kingswood.
Full time score : Kingswood 31 – Wesley 13
Wesley kicked things off with beautiful decoy running and basic line works, but they missed a few scoring opportunities. They managed to force an error on Kingswood and the resulting Penalty was slotted by Full Back Murshid Zubair bringing Wesley to the lead. (Wesley 03- Kingswood 00)
Kingswood too were unfortunate to miss opportunities despite gaining good yards through perfect offloads and line work. They just could not hold on to the ball in the Wesley 22m. From there Penalty was awarded to Wesley that they used it to get out of jail and soon after Subair booted another penalty to put Wesley in the lead. (Wesley 06 – Kingswood College 00)
Despite coming hard at the opposition, Kingswood kept conceding penalties. but through a Penalty awarded for Wesley coming in from sides, scrum half Hirusha Sampath booted it in their first points (Wesley 06 – Kingswood 03)
With the line out, a beautiful offload was picked up by Subair from his Fly half and with on point awareness drew and passed to Center Sahan Hansaja who dived under the post to score his team 5 points. Zubair added the extra 2 points. (Wesley 13 – Kingswood 3)
A few slow-ball, fast-ball phases of forward hits, back ploys and pick and goes, the big No. 8 Waligampola pumped his way to the line to score their first try. Hirusha Sampath converted. (Wesley 13 – Kingswood 10)
Wesley kept putting pressure on entering Kingswood territory every now and then and Wesley Center Hansaja was caught for a high tackle and was sent to the naughty chair as they went into the break even.
Half time WC 13 – KC 10
Few phases with scrum half and fly half combining for Kingswood, brought them closer to the try line along with some gut-shaking hits by their hard working forwards. Later on, the scrum half dummied his way drawing the defence towards himself and passing to his prop Milan Weerasinghe who scored. Hirusha successfully converted. (Kingswood 17 – Wesley 13)
Points Table | Schools Rugby League 2018 Division I ‘A’ & ‘B’
Points Table of the Schools Rugby League 2018. Division IA and Division IIA. Royal Isipathana/p>
A few plays later, the Kings’ captain Waligampola touched down for Kingswood. Fly half Seneviratne was instrumental with his awareness and reading of the game, spotted the gap for Waligampola. Hirusha Sampath yet again added the 2 extras. (Kingswood 24 – Wesley 13)
Wesley did well in their fight back constantly marking their presence in Kingswood territory and played good hands and offloads along with wide long passes. However these passes seemed to work reverse magic on Wesley as Sachintha Seneviratne watched, waited his turn and intercepted and scored under posts with an 80m run for Kingswood which virtually drove the last nail on Wesley’s coffin. Sampath added 2 more points to Wesley’s misery. (Kingswood 31 – Wesley 13)
Leaderboard | ThePapare Stats Centre
Top Try and Point Scorers of the Schools Rugby League 2018
Ishara Cooray of Kingswood was handed a yellow for a big neck tackle on Wesley Full Back Subair and gaining some momentum from this, Wesley threw some last minute ‘Hail Maries’ hoping for a miracle but nothing worked and Referee Jamaldeen blew the long whistle as the boys from the hills claimed the Coveted L. E. Blaze Trophy for themselves at this 33rd encounter.
Kingswood College vs Wesley College | ThePapare Stats Centre
ThePapare Match Centre
Full time score : Kingswood 31 (4T, 1P, 4C) defeat Wesley 13 (1T, 2P, 1C)
ThePapare Player of the Match : Hirusha Sampath Of Kingswood College
Breakdown
Kinswood tries from Tharindu Waligampola (2), Sachintha Seneviratne , Milan Weerasinghe. penalties (1) and Conversions (4) by Hirusha Sampath
Wesley try from Sahan Hansaja, Penalties (2) and Conversion (1) by Murshid Zubair
Send offs (yellow) – Sahan Hansaja (Wesley) and Ishara Cooray (Kingswood)
