Titans brawl for a place in the Knockout Final

Zahira undoubtedly have a lot of rugby in them but need to come up with  their best capability

Trinity doesn’t really seem to have any major flaws in their game and contest against Zahira could turn out to be a useful outing for Trinity 

Isipathana will be all out to defend the Title they regained last September

Royal Tuskers showed signs of intent to play some serious rugby at the semis

Trinity vs Zahira at Royal Sports Complex on 9 May:

Gifted with a lucky chance, Zahira College Maradana had two weeks to wax their game and face the potential Knockout Champs at the semi-final. They have a long way to go in eradicating errors that includes more than 25 occurrences of voluntarily giving up possession to the opposition. Unless this is fixed first, they will be unable to play their game, just like in the last season. Zahira undoubtedly have a lot of rugby in them with a long and steady pipeline of enthusiastic and passionate youngsters, but have failed in executing to their best capability since last season. Thus, the hope of the ever-colourful Zahirian fanbase would be for their team to turn up and play to their fullest potential on Friday, regardless of what the anticipated outcome is.

Zahira can use this game to test their attacking moves, as they would be up against the finest defence in the top Division. If they could successfully pull-off a few things in this game, then those would become their trump cards for the near foreseeable future. Conversely, Zahira should also aim to improve their tackling in this encounter by going after the quick and evasive runners. Zahira’s tendency to break through the defences usually ended up with the sprinting Ball Carrier being abandoned alone with 3 ‘holding on’ offenses in the last game, hence they should make it a point to advance with support closely behind them. Eliminating the 3 undesired ‘high tackles’ and minimising the 4 offenses related to ‘offside’ should keep their penalty count to below 10.

The Lions will not find this outing to be as easy as the Anthony’s game, since they would face some form of resistance from the ambitious Zahirians, and therefore hitting half-a-ton could be quite challenging. Two years ago, although St. Peter’s amassed 60 plus points against a mediocre Vidyartha team, as a result of 8 injured players at the League game, Vidyartha scored two Tries using their Forwards, exposing SPC’s incapacity to defend pick ‘n drives. While Trinity doesn’t really seem to have any major flaws in their game, Zahira could expose a few that STC couldn’t, and therefore this could turn out to be a useful outing for Trinity.

 Isipathana vs Royal at Havelock Park on 11 May:

Even though the two colossal rugby giants have not polished up their rugby skills to perfection as yet, they are highly pumped up and ready for the blockbuster showdown scheduled to kick-off on Sunday, although it cannot be ascertained if this venue would be able to accommodate the multitude that is getting ready to witness this mega-clash, first hand.

Isipathana will be all out to defend the Title they regained last September. Meanwhile the Royal Tuskers showed signs of intent to play some serious rugby at the semis. Therefore, patrons of all strains of rugby can anticipate an adrenaline pumping, edge-of-the-seat, thrill ride from start to finish, that might even go into extra time to make their money’s worth.

The Pathans still have some work to do in order to improve their Ball handling. They managed to bring unforced errors down to 8 from 12 in the last two consecutive outings, but ideally should halve it if they are to make their offensives sting. 5 of the penalties they gave away in their last game were offside by nature, that should be curtailed to, not more than 2.

Royal wouldn’t be able to activate their Mauls in this game, as their lineouts are still not sophisticated enough to survive the Pathana disruptions during the throws. Even if they do manage to form a few, the Pathana Maul defence looks solid enough to diffuse the attacks using multiple defence tactics. Thus, it is best for Royal to try and use other novel tactics that are stored up their sleeves. Since the Greens are rugby smart and are receptive to patterns, working the usual known patterns in the first half, and then the bluff, followed by the double bluff in the second should do the trick to confuse Isipathana defence. 

Another interesting contest within the contest would be to witness the top 2 ‘Jackalers’ of the Tournament going at each other’s “best of class” support play at the breakdowns. Raveen Alexander is destined to have a strenuous evening determining which action occurred first within the lapse of 100 milli-seconds, in order to deem it either as a ‘ruck’ or a ‘holding on’ offense.

The passionate drive factor of both teams supersedes the under-tuned skills factor, to make this a contest not to be missed.

(The Analyst can be reached at: [email protected])