Milo President Trophy 2018 Kingswood march into semifinals

Trinity scrum-half Reshan Karunathilak passes the ball againt Kingswood

By Shamseer Jaleel

Kingswood College, with a dominant performance, progressed to the semifinals of the Milo President Trophy 2018 when they beat Trinity College by 24 points (2 goals, 2 tries) to 15 points (1 goal, 1 try, 1 penalty) at the Nittawela Rugby Stadium yesterday.

At halftime, Kingswood led 14-8. Kingswood will now meet St. Joseph’s College in the first semi-final on 23 June at the Sugathasada Stadium.

The game was played at a good pace with the Randles Hill School dominating proceedings. They looked a better side from the kick-off and were a yard faster in their three-quarter department.  Their scrum-half Hirusha Sampath and Centre Mohamed Seshan were outstanding both in attack and defence. 

Trinity College took time to settle, which was costly for them. Reshan Bandaranyake, Mahdi Abullah and Sakalasooriya were omnipresent for them. They got more than three kickable penalties from close range in the initial half but they opted to go for the try line when they had a six-point deficit, and failed on several occasions to find holes in the Kingswood line.

Trinity drew first blood in the 15th minute of the game when Akitha Sakalasooriya was on target with a penalty kick. But Kingswood hit back less than two minutes later when Rajanayake scored the first Kingswood try. Scrum Half Hirusha Sampath added the extra points. 

Trinity in their next sweeping three-quarter move scored through Reshan Bandaranyake at the left corner flag. On the stroke of halftime Kingswood came back into the game through their fly half Asiri Seneviratne who scored under the posts. Sampath added the extra points to have the halftime score at 14-8 in favour of the Randles Hill School. The last try before the short whistle changed the game in favour of Kingswood.

After the turnaround Dhanajaya Nuwan and Sachith Seneviratne scored two tries for Kingswood while for Trinity Prop Forward Mahdi Abullah scored the only second-half try with Minidu Jayasundera adding the extras through a successful try conversion. The referee for the game was P. Weeranga.

Kingswood advanced to the semifinals of the Milo President Trophy after a lapse of 12 years.