Royal wins Orwille Abeynaike trophy for fourth year

Royal beat S. Thomas’ by 4-1 in their annual Orwille Abeynaike memorial trophy encounter on Wednesday to record victory for the fourth consecutive year.

The match played at S. Thomas’ College grounds in Mount Lavinia was the 13th encounter between the rivals.

Royal drew fresh blood in the sixth minute of the first half with Shahin Ahamed scored the first goal through a penalty corner.

Royal missed several penalty corners in the first half as the hosts faced the tough opponents who outperformed St. Thomas in scoring, dribbling, passing, and team work.

Royal led by 1-0 at lemons.

S. Thomas’, however, came strongly in the first 10 minutes of the second half as Rajan Nallaperuma equalised for the hosts in the seventh minute of that half.

Royal struggled with the sudden aggressiveness from S. Thomas’ for a few minutes, but Captain Shahid Hussain helped his team to give the lead in the 36th minutes of the game.

S. Thomas’ failed to finish their hit-and-stop game after Royal’s second goal, though they fought well to contain Royal’s penetration to their 25 yards.

Royal’s Thanweer Hallaj scored in the 45th minute through a penalty corner, while Shaheer Bari scored a field goal three minutes later to finish 4-1 to win the trophy.

S. Thomas’ has won the trophy for seventh consecutive year since it started in 2000. However, Royal has won the encounter since 2009 after ending the games in draw in 2007 and 2008 under Sri Lanka women’s national coach Rohan Dissanayake.

Old Royalists playing for Nihal Jayaweera trophy lost the game to Old Thomians by 8-2.