Pathana survive late charge by Joes to win 16-13

Isipathana College cleared their first hurdle in the Super Round of the Inter-Schools Under-20 ‘A’ Division League Rugby Tournament when they edged out St. Joseph’s College 16-13 in an absorbing contest played at Havelock Park yesterday.

In a game marked with plenty of injuries and incidents, the former champions collected their points from one goal and three penalties after having led 7-0 at half time while the Joes responded with one goal and two penalties.

Even then, the scoreline will not clearly determine Isipathana’s dominance in this game as they simply threw away plenty of scoring opportunities after dominating almost the entire first half.

In fact, Isipathana were inside the St. Joseph’s territory for a better part of the first 35 minutes of play, but they managed to score only a solitary try through their flanker Hettiarachchi in the sixth minute of the game.

St. Joseph’s of course suffered a serious injury blow very early in the game as two of their key players fly half Dilhara Subash and full back Isuru Kanchana were taken off the playing field for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA).

From there onwards, St. Joseph’s had no option but to defend inside their territory and they performed that task quite magnificently while spoiling many potential scoring opportunities. However, Isipathana changed their tactics in the second half and opted for some running rugby, which paid off well as they continued their dominance with Rinesh Silva firing across three successful penalties.

But in a dramatic turn of events, St. Joseph’s made a late rally to win the game as their big number eight Naveen Marasinghe powered his way to touch down in a moment of sheer brilliance.

Replacement kicker Ruchitha Rodrigo who had earlier converted two penalties made no mistake with the vital conversion to bring the game alive and to reduce the margin to 13-16, a couple of minutes from the final whistle.

Royal down Wesley 21-16

Royal College started their campaign with a hard-fought 21-16 victory over Wesley College in the opening fixture of the Super Round played at Longden Place on Saturday.

The defending champions, chasing a fourth successive league title, collected their points from three goals after trailing 7-9 at half time while the wesleyites managed only a solitary goal and three penalties.