Royal-Kingswood should be a thriller

The confrontation between defending schools Under-20 ‘A’ Division Segment One League champions Kingswood College, Kandy and Royal College, Colombo on June 20 (Saturday) at the Royal Sports Complex should turn out to be a thriller.

The Kingswoodians who suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Isipatana by 19-25 last week came up with a dazzling display of open rugby to beat the strong St. Peter’s team by the staggering margin of 44 points to 12 on Saturday.

After being contained to a 15-12 lead at half time the lads from Randles Hill went on the rampage in the next 40 minutes to pile up 29 more points helped by a superlative display by Sri Lanka Youth player and fly half Roshan Weeraratne, full back Rajitha Sansoni and scrum half Mohamed Afsal.

A repeat performance by the Kingswood ‘threes’ should see them emerge victorious on Saturday.

The forte of the unbeaten Royalists have been their power-packed forwards. Spearheaded by No. 8 Hamza Hassen the Royal ‘eight’ gave a sterling display with Nikira Senanayake, Shehan Pathirana, Ranga Perera, Hasthika Bandaranayake and Ashane Dassanayake giving of their best which helped them to score a smashing 31-15 win over Trinity in the ‘Bradby’ return.

But where the Kingswoodians have a distinct advantage over the Royalists is in place kicking as they have two superb kickers in skipper Roshan Weeraratne and Rajitha Sansoni while Royalists lack a reliable place kicker with Mushin Faleel falling with an easy penalty and only converting two tries out of five in the Bradby Shield Second Leg.

Fitness too could play a vital role in the final outcome with Kingswood having the edge over Royal having scored 19 points in the last 20 minutes against Isipatana and 29 points against the Peterites in the second half proving their ability to last the pace.