President’s Trophy Rugby 2018 Peter’s oust Wesley

St. Peter’s College pulled off a remarkable 23 points (2 goals, 3 penalties) to 13 points (1 goal, 2 penalties) win against Wesley College in their second President’s Trophy 2018 rugby encounter which was worked off at the Sugathadasa Stadium yesterday.

At halftime the winners led 10-7.

The game was played with a good pace as both teams dished out some quality rugby. Julian Charles, Abdullah Faiz, Keneth Wimaladasa and Jason Karunaratne were outstanding for the Bambalapitiya lads while for Wesley Mursheed Zubair and Dayan Sabbar excelled.

The Peterites opened the scoring through a Wimaladasa penalty to which Zubair replied with an excellent try where he covered more than 40 metres. He also added the extra points. Ten minutes later Peterite winger Shenal Silva covered nearly 40 meters, getting past several defenders, to touch down for an excellent try. Wimaladasa added the extras to have St. Peter’s up 10-7 heading into halftime.

After the turnaround the Peterites scored through burly prop forward Abdullah Faiz with Wimaladasa adding the extras. Wesley’s glimmer of hope of a final’s berth faded away when their star Zubair was taken off due to an ankle injury. This led to a successful penalty kick from Tharindu Welipita. But Wimaladasa replied with one more to create a 20-10 lead. There was time for one more Welipita penalty but it was a too little too late as the lads from Bambalapitiya booked their finals berth against St. Joseph’s College on 30 June. There were a few questionable decisions made by referee Aaqil Jamaldeen in the game.

Second half rally sends Joes through

St. Joseph’s College progressed to the President’s Trophy final next weekend when they made a superb second-half rally to beat Kingswood 23-10 at the Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo.

The Joes scored two converted tries and three penalties while the Randles Hill School replied with two tries.

The Joes’ penalties were converted by Santhu Algama, who had a grand outing, while the two tries were scored by Kavindu Keshan and Thereka Santhush. Weligampola and Seshan scored Kingswood’s tries.