CR & FC down Kandy 33-25 to win league tournament after 26 years !

By Special Sports Correspondent

CR&FC broke a 26-year old hoodoo to win the Inter-Club league rugby tournament when they beat Kandy SC 33-25 in a closely fought out decider at Longden Place yesterday. The last time CR&FC won the league tournament was in 1998 under the leadership of Viraj Prashantha.

With the win CR not only remained unbeaten, but ended a dominating period by Kandy, which had to be satisfied as runners up in the tournament. The winners produced five tries, one conversion and two penalties while Kandy responded with three tries, two conversions and two penalties.

Kandy’s sparkle was mainly in the first half where they led 13-6 thanks to an all-round performance coming from centre three quarter Tharinda Ratwatte who scored a peach of a try, added the conversion and also kicked right a penalty. CR’s first half penalty came off the boot of Chathura Senewiratne with the game 10 minutes old.

CR made some threatening moves in the second half to which Kandy had no real defence nor answers. Adeesha Weerathunga and Raveen de Silva crossed the line in quick succession in the second half and in between that there was a try by Kandy’s Ratwatte. But what was striking was that the Red Shirts had slowed down Kandy by the 18th minute in the second half. The scores were tied at 18 all at that time and CR were attacking and Kandy were desperately defending their goal line.

CR’s Gemunu Chethiya produced a try when Kandy were down to 14 men due to a yellow card offence. But Kandy made a do or die come back five minutes from the end when replacement player Danushka Ranjan scored a try and put his team in the lead with the score reading 25-23. CR produced their last burst with tries coming from winger Randy Silva and number eight and playmaker Lasindu Karunathilake which put them back in the lead. CR could have stretched their lead further if their place kickers hadn’t let them down.

In the final game of the women’s tournament Army Sports Club beat Navy Sports Club by 12-7 after trailing 7-0 at half time. But Navy SC by virtue of collecting more bonus points in the tournament were declared as the league tournament winners.