Antho: 25 ( 1 Goal, 3 Tries , 1 Penalty)
Wesley: 10 ( 1 Goal ,1 Penalty)
The score line read 25-10 in favour of the home team at Nittawela when the referee blew the long whistle at the Singer League encounter between St.Anthony’s and Wesley. The crowd who turned up for the game witnessed a very keen tussle and Wesley, despite being the under dogs gave Anthony’s a good fight even though the final score line suggests otherwise.
The visitors managed to put the Anthonians under pressure very early when a Wesley player had the presence of mind to catch the deflected ball from the uprights off a penalty kick made by his place kicker and score right under the post. The easy conversion was made by R.P Peiris to add that extra two points and the score line read 7 – 0 in favour of the visitors after 11 minutes of play. The home team managed to bring the deficit down to four points when P.C Kumara was able to split the uprights when he got the opportunity off a penalty. With a few minutes to play in the first half the stand-off for the boys from Kandy, Fazlur Rahaman managed to touch down and P.C Kumara obliged to add the extra points and made sure that their team went in to the short breather with a three point lead.
After lemons, the home team controlled most of the possession and looked to have got the control of the game. Both teams were guilty of many handling errors mainly due to wet conditions at Nittawela and hence the game had a lot of breakdowns. Anthony’s squandered two opportunities they got to extend their lead, as Kumara failed to complete two fairly easy penalty kicks which he got in a space of 10 minutes.
The visiting place kicker R.P Peries was up to the mark when he got an opportunity through a penalty about five minute later, and he managed to equalize the score with through his boot. The home crowd began to get anxious as the home team showed butter fingers for the umpteenth time and they relinquished control of the ball through such infringements twice when they were inside their opposition’s five meter line. The tension grew as Kumara once again failed to split the uprights when the opportunity presented itself in the form of a penalty. The skipper for Anthony’s, Sankha Rajaguru took it upon himself to get his team out of jail and he scored just to the right of the uprights from a brilliant burst through the Wesley defence in the with 10 minutes left in the clock. The rotten run for Kumara continued as he failed to add the extra points. Sankha did not stop from there as he repeated the performance eight minutes later to touch down for his second try of the game. His powerful hand-offs proved to be too much for the visiting defenders and after that try it looked it was curtains for the visitors as only two minutes were left in the clock. The lanky lock forward for Antho, S.N Sooriyabandara followed his captain’s suit as he marauded his way through the Wesley defense, which looked out of steam in the last few minutes and scored to extend the lead to 15 at close of play.The kicking for Anthony’s continued its poor run and the last three tries were left unconverted. Had they had the kicking prowess, the score line would have been much more appalling for Wesley but at the end of the day Wesley was able to keep their heads high as they didn’t go down wondering.
St.Anthony’s has secured a spot in the next years’ top division with this victory while Wesley might have to play in the B-Division next year.
TheScore Man of the Match: S.T.B Rajaguru
