Lankan youth rugby team finish third

The Sri Lanka youth rugby team came up with a stupendous performance to score a historic 31-15 win over defending champions South Korea in the third place play off at the Hong Kong Stadium on Saturday.

Thus the Lankans not only finished third but also overcame Asian heavyweights South Korea for the first time in their history.

Dharmaraja College skipper and centre Darshana Etipola who had a grand game scored two tries while Royal's vice captain and prop forward Nikira Senanayake and Prince of Wales flanker Damith Honnanthera scored a try each while Deputy Skipper Roshan Weeraratne converted all four tries and fired across a penalty to give the Lankans a resounding victory. Hong Kong emerged champions of the tournament with a runaway 37-nil win over Chinese Taipei.

Earlier Hong Kong scored a smashing 51-10 win over Sri Lanka in the semi-finals with prop forward Nikira Senanayake scoring two splendid unconverted tries for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka scored a runaway 55-nil win over minnows of Asian rugby Singapore in the cutchin raiser of the tournament.

Centre Darshana Etipola of Dharmaraja scored a hat-trick of tries while Thomian Janik Jayasuriya touched down twice while Royal skipper Naren Dhason, his school-mate Kalane Amarasinghe, Peterite Shenal Dias and Kingswodian Rajitha Sansoni scored one try each.

In the other semi-final Chinese Taipei pulled off a stunning 34-29 win over the mighty South Koreans.

Darshana Etipola was easily the pick of the Sri Lankan three quarters and had the honour of scoring five tries in the three games.

The Lankan forwards too came up with a terrific display with prop forward Nikira Senanayake being a source of inspiration to his team-mates with his fiery loose play ably supported by Janik Jayasuriya, Kalana Amarasinghe, Shenal Dias, Damith Honnathara and Hamza Hassen.

The Sri Lanka team was coached by Niller Ihrahim assisted by Bilal Yusuf who took great pains to mould them into a formidable outfit.