Havies hold edge over Sailors

By Shamseer Jaleel 

The club league rugby tournament will come to end when Havelocks and Navy lock horns in Welisara on Sunday. 

But with the title already safely with Kandy, interest in the competition will decrease over its last four matches. Ideally the organisers of the tournament would have pulled a major crowd if they had staged the Kandy-CH&FC game in Nittawela for Sunday and advanced the Navy-Havies clash to Saturday. 

Kandy will travel down to Colombo for the very last time this season when they lock horns with CH&FC at Racecourse grounds. Kandy will be using their bench in the latter half to give some match practice and exposure to their reserve players who have fought for their place throughout the season. It is possible for Kandy to put up a score in advance of 50 after they walked away with the league title for the 18th time. 

On the same day Police will host CR&FC. The cops, winning their last game against Army, and CR losing out on their Head Coach makes the game even and a Police win is possible if they play as a unit. Botheju and Mustaq are entrusted with the coaching job for this game as well as for the Clifford Cup knockout encounters. 

On Sunday Army will host Air Force at Longden Place. Both teams are evenly matched with Air Force having a slight edge. The game between Navy and Havies will be a closely-fought encounter but the final results will not change the ranking of either team as Havelocks will finish second and Navy will end a disappointing third. 

CR Head Coach Ben Macdougall fired

By Shamseer Jaleel

CR&FC, who had a disastrous club rugby season, have sacked their Head Coach Ben Macdougall due to the team’s poor performance during the ongoing season. 

Earlier last year the Longdon Place Club removed former Sri Lanka Sevens player and Head Coach Inthi Marikar, who took the club from sixth to third position plus helped them finish as the second-best team in the Clifford Cup tournament.

CR, who wanted to take their rugby to the next level, have gone from bad to worse with many players leaving the Longden Place club last year and the team progressing without any direction in the season, playing well in patches. 

The future coaching assignment of McDougall, a 39-year-old Scotsman who was the former Army and St. Peter’s College rugby head coach, is yet to be announced.

“With our focus on the knockout competition up next, the rugby board of CR&FC has made a decision to relieve Ben Macdougall of his coaching duty going forward and would like to thank Ben for the work done with the team during the league phase,” a spokesman for the club said. 

The CR&FC team will now be guided by the experienced Danushka Botheju, who will coach the forwards and Moahmed Mustaq, who will work with the three quarters under the guidance of Ajith Abeyratne.