Kingswood College retained the LE Blaze trophy when they beat traditional rivals Wesley College by 31 points to 13 in their annual rugby encounter played at the Race Course ground yesterday.
The winner’s points came from four tries, four conversions and one penalty to Wesley’s one try, one conversion and two penalties. Wesley dominated the first half for a 13-10 scoreline.
Wesley kicked off the match and controlled the field well in the early stages. At the fourth minute of the game Wesley were awarded a penalty and Mursheed Subair kicked well from 40 metres out.
Four minutes later a second penalty was awarded to Wesley and again and Mursheed kicked right. At the 18th minute of the game Kingwood also received a penalty and their place kicker Hirushan Sampath made no mistake to open the scoring for the visitors.
At around the 25th minute, Wesley scored their first try through a lovely pass from Mursheed for Sahan Hansaja to touch down breaking the Kingswood defence. Mursheed made no mistake with the conversion.
Soon after Kingwood got into the action when their skipper Tharindu Weligapola scored the first try to reduce the lead to 13-10.
Kingswood were off to an electrifying start in the second half when their prop Dilan Weerasinghe went through the defence to touch down near the posts after they were awarded penalty just 10 metres away from the touchline. Sampath converted well and they were back in action scoring a third try through skipper Tharindu Weligampola.
Sampath made no mistake and converted to give the visitors a 24-13 lead in the 55th minute of the game. Kingswood played well in defence and some precision passes in the second half helped them to take the lead. The school from the hill country scored their fourth try in the 60th minute due to a poor pass by a Wesley player as Kingswood’s Sachitha Seniviratne got the ball and scored under the post for Sampath Hirushan to convert.
Kingswood ended the game with a better margin than last year when they had a close 40-39 win.
The match was referred by Aaqil Jamaldeen.