Royal, Thomian should be a rousing encounter

Chris Dhambarage

A rousing game is on the cards when two equally good teams Royal College and S. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia clash in their 47th annual inter school rugby encounter for the Michael Gunaratne Trophy at the Royal College Sports Complex grounds in Reid Avenue today.

This game will be of great importance for both teams as they are also vying for honours in the Singer Under 20 inter school Division One League rugby tournament.

In addition both teams are hoping to bounce back into recognition following two disappointing outings last week.

Royal College suffered an embarrassing 12-24 defeat at the hands of their traditional rivals Trinity College Kandy in the Bradby Shield first leg played at the same venue.

The Thomians also went through a similar experience when they suffered a shock 15-19 defeat at the hands of a Division Two side St. Joseph’s College at Longden Place.

That result of course did not make any impact on the standings as the Thomians remained in the fourth position of the Division One Group A points table having recorded five impressive victories.

In contrast Royal College dropped into the fifth place in the standings with four victories and three defeats.

This will be a good chance for them to regroup and come out victorious ahead of the crucial second leg of the Bradby Shield encounter on June 28 at the Bogambara Stadium in Kandy.

Royal of course made a disastrous start to the season while going down to Kingswood College Kandy and arch rivals Isipatana College in their opening two encounters. But thereafter they settled down and went on to register four successive wins against Vidyartha College (29-nil), Dharmaraja College (39-22), St. Anthony’s College (25-12) and St. Peter’s College (17-12).

Royal College are also the holders of the Michael Gunaratne Trophy and are hoping to retain it for the third successive year. The record for the highest score in the series also came from Royal College in 2002 under the captaincy of Zulki Hameed which was 39-3 that shattered the 22-nil record established by S. Thomas’ College under Charya de Saram in 1991.

Meanwhile the last occasion S. Thomas’ College won the Trophy was in 2005 under Namal Rajapaksa. And in a coincidence his younger brother Rohitha Rajapaksa will be captaining the Thomian team this time and is hoping to regain the Trophy after a lapse of two years.

The dynamic number eight was faced with a similar situation in the match against the reigning champions St. Peter’s College which they went on to win by a close margin of 22-19 and to regain the Archibald Perera memorial trophy.

S. Thomas’ College have recorded wins against St. Anthony’s College (16-12), St. Peter’s College (22-19), Dharmaraja College (22-20), Isipatana College (17-15) and Vidyartha College (64-nil) while losing to Trinity College (10-15) and Kingswood College (7-29) respectively.

This annual rugby encounter between the two schools was inaugurated in 1962 and the first match ended in a draw. There were four more draws in 1967, 1976, 1978 and 1997 altogether adding five draws to the tally of 46 matches.

Royal College have won the encounter 23 times while S. Thomas’ College have 17 wins to their credit. In 1979 the encounter did not take place due to a dispute regarding the match dates.

The teams:

Royal College: Nikira Senanayake, Udara de Silva, Shamir Fajudeen, Shehan Pathirana, Kalana Amarasinghe, Hasthika Bandaranayake, Ashik Bari, Bilal Hassen, Rameez Rafeek and Naren Dhason, Suvindha Lenaduwa, (captain), Duminda Attygalle, Shamil Ahamed, Nabeel Faizer, Mushin Faleel.

S. Thomas’ College: Rajindra Gunasekera, Janith Jayasuriya, Amrith Anrado, Bevan Hallock, Ramesh Perera, Jeewaka Hewawitharana, Tariq Jayasuriya, Rohitha Rajapaksa (captain), Manjith Amangama and Dinuka Ranasinghe, Shaveen Kapuwatte, Niluk Wickrematilleke, Heshan Gunaratne, Sumith Kalupatina, Jeromy Fernando.