Royal, the boys in blue found new kids on the blocks D.S. or Dons as they are tagged a handful at the Havelocks park yesterday.
The scoreline reads a 15-point margin in favour of Royal, 41 points to 24 at the long whistle, but Nimal Leuke, the Royal coach, will a have nightmare as to why his forwards let the DONS pinch 4 tries from his defenders , the boys of Reid Avenue. Royal firm favourites in yesterday’s game and masters of the Rolling maul were found wanting in attack despite having control of the game. The Royal Back Division seems flat-footed. However, the pack did a sterling job in the breakdowns and loose play whilst the kicking from full back Farook and his ability to find touch was a feature far beyond compare.
The Royalist are improving and impressive and will look different by the league stage, but the headache at hand is the semi-final game against the Green Machine this Saturday.
Having to correct and get their mistakes sorted out is easily said than done, but Leuke is a winning coach. Hence, Royal players will be more outdoors than indoors in the coming week, working out ther envisaged forced and unforced errors by keeping it to a bear minimum against the men in green who will make you cry for mums milk on the park if Royal make the errors they made at Havelock Park yesterday. They missed too many tackels. The rolling maul was a failure with the prop and hooker not combining whilst they seemed wanting even in taking advantage of more scoring opportunities due to the DONS lack of discipline and intent.
The second quarter finals saw Isipathana struggle upfront because they let loose the Wesly three quater line dictate terms in the first 30 minutes of play to let the double blues lead by 10 points by conceeding two unconverted tries.
The large crowd in attendance would have speculated a bad day in the park for the Green boys.
The tide turn was when Isipathana forwards played their traditional brand just 7 minutes before the breather, using their forwards and spreading the ball for their speedy three quaters to motion. It was a middle muddle by the double blues who let Isipathana score twice just before half time through the individual performance of lock forward Shamri and Rajapaksa. Isipathana was quick to ball on breakdowns and exquisite in loose play. Wesley was caught napping by letting Isipathana forward ball carriers too many opportunities to break their defence.
The second half was the Isipathana show. Play was 65% in the Wesley danger zone which facilitated two more touchdowns by the boys in Green with the boys in blue having to cope with flashy open Rugby in which lock forward Shamri touched down twice off two mismanaged mauls , by which the lankey number 8 had made it a hatrick of tries of which one cross over he achieved was in the first half.
Wesley forwards fought back with a late burst after being led 24 points to 10 , 2 goals, and 2 tries against them , but their last-minute burst yielded no fruits because Wesley was trying to close the gate after the horse has bolted.
In the end and in a nut shell comprehensive win for Isipathana, who plays Royal in the block buster semi-finals come Saturday.
Kicking at goal by both teams looked ordinary whilst Isipathana full back was brilliant in gaining excellent yards with his line kicking , whilst Wesley was found wanting in both skills.
