Royal won the league unbeaten by thrashing the Josephians

It was an excellent day for the Royalists, so far unbeaten and the last match of the season was on the 4th of July 2009 – a beautiful Saturday evening at the Royal Sports Complex. The final match of the season for Royal was against St.Joseph’s College, Maradana. Though Royalists were the hot favourites for the day – everyone knew that anything was possible because the Darley Road lads have defeated the strong Trinity lions in their first match.

The game kicked off around 4.30 p.m. It was not an excellent  start for Royal, because took 17 minutes for them to score the first try against the Josephians. The first try was scored by Duminda Attygalle in a very tactical way, after immense practise sessions he has mastered the art of ‘dummy-ing’ – and a great dummy pass fooled the darley road defender and Duminda touched the try line and Mushin successfully converted it. Then the T.B.Jayah Mawatha ruggerrites were pushing on and pressurising the men in blue & gold stripes but it did not carry on for long when the Royal’s flanker Hasthika Bandaranayake scored a try which was successfully converted by Mushin Faleel and then before the half time break a The Royal’s gifted winger Chamara Dabare had a great sprint from the sides and had his touch in the center of the try line and he himself converted the try. At half time the Men in Blue & Gold were 21 : 0.

Royal was in fire now and it was very hard for the Josephians to fight back, it was 10 minutes of the second half when the Royal flanker Hasthika Bandaranayake went for his second try which was converted by Mushin and then Hasthika went for another try and there was a small funny drama went on for the conversion of that try when Royal winger Nabil Faizer went to take the kick, then Hasthika came running asking for the kick and ultimately it was the Royal’s first choice kicker Mushin Faleel who came in for the kick and successfully converted it. The next tries were from the Royal’s Centre Mushin Faleel and the replacement centre of Royal Chilanka Samaraweera, both of them were converted by Mushin. Then the Josephians had a consolation prize – a try scored by Priyan Perera which was converted by Mayura Sanjeeva. When the Referee blew the final whistle it was a ROYAL VICTORY – 49 : 07.

A huge celebration went off in the grounds when fire crackers burst off and a bug cake was presented to the team by the old boys. All Royal fans were cheering and there were some time for emmotions too. The Rugby Team made a cicle in the heart of the ground and sang the Royal College Song with pride.

This season was a great one for Royal. Royal won the League with an unbeaten record and also the Michael Gunaratne Trophy, Maj.Milroy Fernando Trophy and the ‘Big’ Bradby Shield. They won all possible trophies and shields this year. And most of the players showed great performance. Naren Dhason played his role as a player and a captain in a great way and also Hasthika Bandaranayake, Mushin Faleel, Duminda Attygalle, Nikira Senanayake, Aqeel Sathuk, Hamza Hassen, Shabir, Shamil, Nabil Faizer, Ashen, Udara, Kalana Amerasinghe and especially the gifted winger of Royal Chamara Dabare have played very well to crown Royal College as the champions of this season.

But it was really unfortunate when I heard that Royal College is not playing the ‘Knockout Tournament’ this season – which was confirmed to me by the Royal Skipper Nraen Dhason as most of the team members are sitting for the G.C.E. Advanced Level examinations next month.

Congrats Guys! – You all made the college flag fly high!

(Special Thanks to my friend Navaka Navaratne for providing me with these excellent photographs of the great moments)

The final battle field is getting hotter…

The Final games of the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby League is coming this week and the League topper Royal College is facing St.Joseph’s College tomorrow. Royalists being the hot favourites tomorrow and a win will give an unbeaten, victorious season for Royal. On the other hand Joseph’s cannot be under estimated as they have proved themselves before in their first league match against Trinity by beating the team which is now placed 3rd in the league table.

For Royal SJC is not a big challenge provided Royal perform well. In the last week’s encounter against Isipathana Vidyalaya it was clear that Royal suffered a setback in the first half – the fire in the game was missing but somehow made it in the second half to thrash the Greenlanders with a satisfactory margin. Royal should play a clean game like they played against Kingswood to make sure they overcome the Josephians.

Royal College ruggerites have done a brilliant job this season under the captaincy of Naren Dhason – the captain cool! The team is very strong from all sides and the performance is excellent. Winger Chamara Dabare, Prop Forward Nikira Senanayake, Hamza Hassen, Duminda Attygalle, Hasthike Bandaranayake & the skipper Naren Dhason are doing a great job while all other team members are doing their duties promptly for Royal to achieve victory.

Now the final battle field is prepared and getting hotter every second – let’s wait and watch the excellent encounter and hope to celebrate a ‘ROYAL VICTORY’ tomorrow.! Best wishes to Naren & Team!

Royal prove tough to beat!

What a game of Rugby it was! Not many tries, not many fouls, not many of anything but fire! The whole game was like fire – there was no time to rest. The Greenlanders were running throughout the match and the speed was exciting. But will only speed help to win a match?! Yes, speed is not the only factor which decides the match and may be Royal did not have the speed of the Pathanians but they showed their skills and proved once again that they are a hard to beat team!

On a showering eve today (27th June 2009) at the Royal Sports Complex the game of rugby between Royal College & Isipathana Vidyalaya kicked off at around 4 p.m. It was a ‘must win’ game for Royal but victory was not given for granted! It was the Pathanians who started the scoring from a penalty by Devinda Prasad. Then the match went on for a bit long without any scoring. The Royalists were struggling a bit to add soem points to teh score board because of the speed the Pathanians showed in the match. The game of the greens were mainly capitalised on sprints, passes and kicks rather than scrums and line outs. Then from a great scrum five meters away from the touchline, Royal’s number 8 Hamza Hassen made an excellent move to score a try which was unfortunately not converted by Mushin Faleel. The game went on without further scores until the half time. But Royal’s Udara De Silve was penalised with a yellow cardfor rough play . The half time score was 5 : 3  and the lead was not a sufficient one to settle down for Royal.

Second half was full of fire like the first half. The Men in Green tried to sneak through to score but capitalised on kicking the ball to touch or attempting for drop goals. On the other hand Royalists were trying to score more but line outs weren’t that perfect for Royal as they kept on missing the ball most of the time. After 20 minutes in the second half Royal’s Chilanka Sudaraka scored a try from a scrum within the ten meter line and gave  a break to Royal to breath a bit but the Men in Blue & Gold knew that was not enough to seal the game. That try was not converted, though kicker Mushin Faleel tried his best. The Pathanians were trying hard to break through but all the attempts were unsuccessful. They even missed a whole lot of advantages gifted to them by the referee. Then came an excellent moment – Royal’s Shehan Pathirana touched the tryline and Mushin successfully converted the try to make the score board 17 : 3. Now everyone knew the game was sealed and it was proved when the Pathana fans started leaving the premises. The last try of the game came from Royal’s Kalana Amarasinghe but the Deputy. Skipper Nikira Senanayake, though had  a good try – could not convert it. The whistle came after to end the game and Royal had a nice victory over Isipathana Vidyalaya 22 : 3. Royal College successfully won the Major Milroy Fernando trophy and the whole team was with happy faces. The Royalists gave  a great cheer for their beloved team.

Nothing more on the match but there were spectators complaining on the ability of the referee and the linesmen, especially on off side and some other crucial moment decisions. We cannot complain about the judgement. All over the world and in all sports there have been issues on refrees’ misjudgements. Referees are not machines or robots – they are after all human beings, but the referees have the morale responsibility to do their duties properly to the maximum of their ability.

Again Royal has proved that they are a ‘tough to beat’ side and are now the hot favourites to Win the President’s Trophy for this rugger season. The Last match of the season is next week against St.Joseph’s College and it is told that it won’t be a tough opponent for Royal which has remained unbeaten and victorious for the whole season.

Congrats – Naren & his excellent lads for the wonderful performance. Waiting to see you guys win the President’s Trophy next week.

(Sincere thanks to my friend Navaka Navaratne for providing me with those valuable photographs for this post)

Will money bring success?

Ha Haa – all transfer stories around the football news sites and all talks are on millions. I never thought a million dollar will go so cheap as it is proving that football world is pumping in huge amounts for players this season. Especially Real Madrid after the return of its’ ‘Galacticos’ president Perez, he is working strong on re-implementing his ‘Galacticos’ project by paying over the odds or simple words paying huge money and buying so called ‘star players’ to Bernabeu. I wrote an early post on Kaka’s and Ronaldo’s transfers, both of them which is of the value of Approx. 140 million pounds.

The basic idea which I could not understand is can all this money bring back victory to the team or the club? Florentino Perez, when he was the president of real Madrid earlier to his second term he introduced the ‘Galacticos’ project. ‘Galactico’ means super star of football and the concept is buying a number of superstars and having a  super star class team. In the first era of ‘Galacticos’ Perez signed 4 great players of those days – Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo & David Beckham for a total value of 135.7 Million pounds. Real tasted immediate success after the signings of Figo and Zidane. They won the La Liga titles in 2000-2001, 2001-2002 & 2002-2003 seasons and also won the UEFA Champions league in the 2001-2002 season. After 2002-2003 season Real signed Beckham & Ronaldo and expected more success but unfortunately they couldn’t win any trophies in the next seasons but Barcelona their bitter rivals were on a winning streak and this last season ended last month was a huge success for them as they won the triplets – the league, cup & the European championship and notably Barcelona has not made any ‘huge’ signings but have trained most of their players from academy.

To be frank – money will not always bring you success, there are other more important things which decide success and I am sure it won’t take long for these ‘hugely spending’ clubs to understand that.

World recession and club football transfers….

These days we read, listen and many things on world economy crisis & recession, and the latest famous football player transfers arose a question on whether it is true that the world is in ‘real’ financial crisis.

Real Madrid – the Spanish based rich football club has spent approx.140 Million Pounds on 2 players – Kaka & C.Ronaldo. Earlier real madrid confirmed the signing of Kaka for approx.50 million pounds from the Italian football giants AC Milan and later they confirmed an agreement with Manchester United FC for signing of Christiano Ronaldo for a deal worth of approx.80 Million Pounds. The first transfer was a world record (real madrid broke it’s own record of signing zenedin zidane) and then within a week real madrid broke their own record by signing Ronaldo.

At contemporary – where the world is suffering with huge financial crisis, these signings raise a doubt and a hard question on ‘economical recession’.

Leaving that apart – as a sport these ‘huge’ buyings are really challenging the fair play theory. Though it is hard to predict whether real madrid will achieve heights with these signings, yet there are huge differences between the richer clubs and the other clubs. And I personally don’t believe that such things are good for the development and stability of football.