Kandy secures third bonus point win; beats Police

Tarinda Ratwatte on his way for a try

Jason Dissanayake wins a line out ball for Kandy SC

By Shamseer Jaleel 

Defending League Champions, Kandy Sports Club once again put up a good first half show and outplayed Sri Lanka Police Sports Club by 33 points (5 tries, 4 conversions) to 19 points (3 tries, 2 conversions) in their Nippon Paint Inter Club Major rugby League 2023/2024 encounter which concluded at the Nittawela Rugby Stadium yesterday.

At the short breather, Kandy SC led 26/7. This was Kandy SC’s third bonus point win after securing wins over CH and Army in their earlier two encounters.

Kandy dominated play in the initial half through several phases with the inclusion of Danushka Ranjan who played his first full game after nearly two years out of rugby. Kandy three quarters, as usual, looked threatening on attack. Nigel Ratwatte, Tarinda Ratwatte, Danushka Ranjan and Srinarth Sooriyabandara looked threatening in their moves. In forwards play, Dilshan Fareed Kandy hooker had a grand game once again for the home team.

Meanwhile Cops played well in patches with Prince Chamara, Amjad Faumy and Akash Madushanka playing their hearts out. Akash the National sevens player made some bold moves which put the Kandy defence all over.

Kandy drew first blood through Danushka Ranjan’s dashing run down the right corner flag in the 20th minute of the game. Tarinda Ratwatte missed the difficult conversion. Soon Police replied through a try by Amjad Faumy. Prince Chamara added the extras to take the lead 7/5 favouring the Cops. But it was no stopping Kandy and their hooker, Dilshan Fareed who went over for his first try. Tarinda added the extra 2 points to take the lead 12/7. Then Nigel’s high kick was chased successfully by Tarinda Ratwatte who scored the try and converted by himself to increase the tally to 19/7. Prince Chamara missed an easy penalty for the Cops but Kandy hit back through Milan Wijesinghe through a forwards rush. Tarinda Ratwatte conversion increased the lead to 26/7.

After the turn around Kandy with a lead of 19 points started to relax and make number of handling errors which allowed Police to score one more try through Sachith Silva which was goaled by Prince Chamara. Dulanjan Wijesinghe the replacement hooker touched down once again for the Cops to reduce the gap to 7 points but Kandy got out of jail with some good solid defence work and scored their last try through Tarinda Ratwatte and converted to take 33/19 win.

Referee was Ishanka Abeykoon.