Sri Lanka edges out Malaysia

By Shamseer Jaleel

An injury time try scored by Sri Lanka replacement Centre Thanuja Maduranga made way for a close win for the Sri Lankan Juniors against Malaysia, edging the latter by 27 points (four tries, two conversions, one penalty) to 21 (three tries, three conversions) in their under-19 Junior Asian Rugby Championship 2016 which was played in Malaysia.

At the short breather the hosts led 14-8.

Sri Lanka opened the scoring with a try by full back Gayan Wickramaratne and the other tries were scored by skipper and prop forward Nikhila Gunadheera. The final match winning try was by Thanuja Maduranga. The conversions were done by Wickramaratne who also put over a penalty. For the Malaysians, tries were scored by prop forward Sakariya Ismail, flanker Mohamed Sazan and number eight Ahamed Hafeez. The conversions were done by full back Razali.

In another encounter in the same tournament, Hong Kong, the defending champions, stamped their class and warned Sri Lanka of what is it to come when they outplayed Taipei 54-7.

Today, hosts Malaysia will play Taipei while Sri Lanka will take on Hong Kong in a must-win encounter to qualify for the Junior Rugby World Cup 2017 Division II in Uruguay next year. The winner of the tournament will secure their berth for this world event. Japan who was in the top division will be demoted to Division II in Uruguay after ending last place in the Division I Junior World Tournament in 2016.