Second-half blitz steers St. Peter’s to victory

St. Peter’s College produced a splendid second-half rally to overcome Trinity College 25-13 in the President’s Trophy Inter-Schools Under-19 Knock-Out Rugby Tournament fourth quarter-final fixture played at Havelock Park yesterday.

The newly crowned ‘A’ Division league champions came under early pressure as they snatched a slender 8-6 lead at half time and the Trinitians looked like they would make a match of it after the interval having lost against the same opponents 10-22 earlier in the league tournament at Pallekele.

But in a dramatic turn of events, St. Peter’s quickly shifted the momentum in their favour within the opening 10 minutes of the second half by running down three magnificent tries to put the issue beyond doubt and setting up a mouthwatering semi-final clash against their traditional rivals St. Joseph’s College next week.

The Peterites went on to collect their points from one goal, three tries and one penalty while Trinity managed to score only a solitary goal and converted two penalties.

St. Peter’s started the second half in a spectacular manner as they were able to increase the lead almost with the kick-off as full back Kushan Tharindu produced a powerful run through the left wing to touch down after Windya de Mel had set up the move from a line-out.

Few minutes later, de Mel followed up with the third try as he fell over on the loose ball after their forwards had put the Trinitians under pressure and smothered Shaan Althaf’s clearance kick inside their goal line. The fourth try for St. Peter’s was even more brilliant as Sudesh

Jayawickrama decided to run from his own territory before handing over a good pass to Dineth Ranasinghe, who went on to add the finishing touches near the corner flag.

Yumith Shihara had an off day by his standards as he managed to convert only one try but more importantly St. Peter’s were able to increase the lead to a commanding 25-6 early in the second half.

Trinity managed to score a consolation try in the 59th minute when their replacement prop forward Thenuk Fernando barged over following some excellent passages of play from the forwards with Althaf adding the extra points.

Earlier, Shihara opened the scoring for St. Peter’s with a 25-metre penalty in the very first minute of the game, but Althaf produced the equaliser for Trinity in the 14th minute.

The Peterites scored their first try of the match in the 17th minute with Pasindu Bandara falling over near the corner flag following a five-metre scrum and after Tharindu had executed a superb long pass. Thereafter, Althaf responded with his second penalty in the 27th minute as Trinity went into half time while trailing 6-8.

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