Trinity stun defending champs Royal 21-20
Trinity College brought an end to Royal’s unbeaten record this season as they pulled off a thrilling 21-20 victory over the defending champions in the Inter-Schools Under-20 ‘A’ Division League Rugby Tournament match played at the Royal Sports Complex in Reid Avenue yesterday.
In an absorbing contest, which produced fast open rugby from both sides, Trinity turned the game in their favour while scoring a brilliant try during the dying moments of the game. Altogether, the Trinitians collected their points from one goal, one try and three penalties after leading 13-6 at half time while Royal responded with two goals and two penalties.
Even then, Royal believed that they had the match in their bag at one stage when scrum half Hansaka Higgoda fell over on the lose ball after intercepting a clearance kick from the Trinity full back. Nabeel Yehiya added the extra points to make it 20-16 as the home side took the lead for the first time while heading into the last few minutes of the game. However, Trinity fought back magnificently and brought play back into the Royal territory following some beautiful touch kicks and backed up by their hard-working forwards.
After forcing a series of penalties against some super cover defence from their opponents, the visitors eventually touched down under the post with substitute forward Ariyawansa pouncing over following a good short tap.
Earlier, Trinity took a 10-0 lead inside the first 20 minutes of play with Anuhas Kodituwakku finding a huge gap in the Royal defence to fall over almost under the post.
Kovinda Wickremasinghe added the extra points after having earlier provided the initiative with a 30 metre penalty in the 12th minute of play.
Royal reduced the gap with Nabeel Yehiya putting over his first penalty before Kovindu Wickremasinghe sliced through to add the finishing touches to a super three quarter move.
However, Royal levelled the scores shortly after the turnaround with Rahil Wijesekera scoring a copybook try giving Yehiya an easy conversion.