Royal lays foundation to regain Bradby

By M Naushad Amit

Trinity captain Vishwajith Wijesinghe being tackled by Royal skipper Naren Dhason with his team-mate Muhseen Faleel looks on, in the fist leg of the Bradby played in Kandy last Saturday (Pic by Rukshan Abeywansha)

The first leg of the 65th Bradby Shield, which was also a league match, was the only schools’ match last week with eight teams enjoying a well-deserved rest. The large crowd of rugby fans who witnessed the first leg of the Bradby were entertained to an exciting display of rugby when Royal went on to record their fifth straight win in five outings beating traditional rivals Trinity by 22-12 at Bogambara last Saturday. However Royal failed to come on top of the Division 1 Segment ‘A’ table with Kingswood holding on to the lead on the higher margin of points scored by them.

Royal supporters should be beaming with high hopes to regain the Bradby after their team’s fine performance last weekend which left the Trinitians with a tough task to win the second leg with a margin over 10 points. Commenting on the game an official of the Royal coaching staff said that they did not have any doubts of a win which laid a strong foundation with a margin of 10 points for the second leg in Colombo in another nine days. “I think our boys played a gallant game as we anticipated. Beating Trinity in Kandy is not an easy thing as they had a strong team in time for the Bradby. We gradually took control of the game and in the final ten minutes or so we were in total command. The 10 point margin will be a great advantage for us,” he said. Royal will be back in action this weekend against Dharmaraja with just a week to go for the second leg of the Bradby. Commenting on their plans the official further stated: “This match will be a good one to make ourselves ready for the Bradby second leg. We will make maximum use of this match to put our players through their paces and, of course, since we are unbeaten so far we would like to continue that winning streak,” the official added.
Trinity coach Anil Jayasinghe was not a happy man after the beating they got. He opined that it was our own mistakes that led to a Royal win. “In the first half we played a better game. As time progressed things slipped away from our hands. If you look at the tries Royal scored except for the first one all others were ‘give aways’ gifted by our errors. We were with much hope to record a win but they had their game plan spot on and defended very well. Of course we should commend our boys implementing the game plan accordingly. But it was not our day I suppose,” he said. Trinity will take on low seeded Mahanama this weekend in Colombo and Jayasinghe thinks this will be a good game for Trinity before their second leg encounter in a week to follow.
“Mahanama will definitely come to spoil our game as they have nothing to lose in the league. But we will not take them lightly. We will go flat out and will have all our players in action. This will be a good outing for a practice session before our next big encounter,” Jayasinghe added.
Defending champions Kingswood with four-out-of-four wins are still on top with a better record of points scored than Royal though both are unbeaten and have the same average. The only change to take place in the points table is Trinity moving down a notch to sixth place and St. Joseph’s coming up to No.5. As other teams in the top segment were out of action during the concluded week, not much of a change has taken place in the positions but, in the coming week there could be some vital changes.
In Segment ‘B’ the strong and unbeaten Wesley side continues to dominate the points table with three straight wins while their neighbors CWW Kannangara MV are on top of the Segment ‘C’ points table with four wins in four matches.