Joes eye big win to book Super Round berth
St. Joseph’s College will look to seal their place in the Super Round stage when they take on St. Anthony’s College in their inter-Schools Under-20 ‘A’ Division League Rugby Tournament match at Havelock Park today.
The Joes are currently placed third in Group-2 with a tally of 17 points and a victory would put them on par with Trinity College, who have already completed their maximum of five games in the preliminary round. However, in case of two teams having secured equal points, St. Joseph’s will still advance into the Super Round stage as they will have the added advantage of having defeated Trinity 20-15 during an earlier fixture in Pallekele.
In fact, that performance was undoubtedly their best this season after having started the tournament with a comprehensive 34-3 victory against Kingswood College at Havelock Park.
Thereafter, St. Joseph’s went on to edge out S. Thomas’ College 30-28 to regain the Lady Jayathilaka Shield before losing their unbeaten record against the defending champions Royal following a 3-17 defeat at the Royal Complex last week.
The Antonians, of course, are coming out after a decent performance last week where they provided a real challenge against S. Thomas’ before going down 25-32 in a high-scoring encounter at Havelock Park. In fact, St. Anthony’s have featured in a couple of close matches this season but have been unable to convert their dominance into points.
Despite going in as the underdogs, their performance against the hometown rivals Trinity was quite outstanding as they were beaten 18-25 following an exciting contest at the Nittawela Stadium in Kandy. The Antonians, no doubt, will be determined to produce a repeat performance and try to stretch the favourites to the maximum in their attempt to create a major upset in their last outing of the preliminary round.
Meanwhile, St. Joseph’s will be forced to start the game sans their Head Coach Nilfer Ibrahim, who is currently on national duty with the Sri Lanka Men’s Seven-A-Side Rugby Team in Birmingham, England.
The Joes will need to start fresh and reduce the number of casualties as well as they had the awful experience of having a couple of players stretched out due to injuries in last week’s game against Royal.