Royal College will be out to retain the Michael Gunaratne Trophy when they take on arch rivals S. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia in their annual inter- school rugby encounter of the Singer ‘A’ Division league tournament first round at Royal Complex commencing 4.15pm today.
This traditional encounter was inaugurated in 1962 and the first match ended in a draw. Present tally stands at 31 wins to Royal and 19 to S.Thomas’ with 5 draws. In 1979 the match was not played due to a dispute regarding the date for the encounter.
The Thomians lost last year’s encounter 14-31 at S’Thomas grounds at Mount Lavinia under the leadership of winger Naveen Heenakankanamge where the winning Royal captain was fly half Ovin Askey.
This time Royal definitely seem to have a great chance of retaining the trophy after having won both their two previous games in style against Kingswood College Kandy (29-03), and St. Anthony’s College Kandy (55-13) being remaining as unbeaten Royal will be captained this year by their experienced wing three quarter Shabith Feroze while the most experienced and one of the best school coaches if not the very best Dushanth Lewke, the former Royal College rugby player and former Sri Lanka national rugby captain will be the head coach of Royal along with Peterite Mohamad Sheriff as assistant coach and T.A. Silva, former Army and Sri Lanka national full back is the kicking coach.
The 2015 Royal side under the leadership of Bhanuka Gamage re wrote the Royal-Thomian rugby history where they demolished the Thomians 52-0 at Havelock Park, which to-date is the highest score by a team in this traditional encounter.
The Thomians’ highest score is 22-0 under the captaincy of former Sri Lanka and CR & FC second row forward Charya De Saram in 1991. Incidentally in 2015 Royal’s unsung hero and the highest try scorer in the league tournament, number eight Supun Warnakulasuriya emerged the first and the only rugby player from both the schools to score a hat trick of tries when he touched down four times to enable Royal to achieve this remarkable 52-0 victory.
The Thomians will be hoping to produce an improved performance after they have lost both their matches so far against St.Joseph College Maradana (10-33) and Kingswood College Kandy (05-24) in their last game up at Digana in Kandy.
The Thomian outfit will be captained this year by experienced Sri Lanka national under 18 Sevens player and flanker Christian De Lile while ex Royalist Billal Yusuf will be their head coach and former Sri Lanka winger and ex Royalist Chamara Dabare as assistant coach along with hooker Achala Perera the forwards coach.
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