St. Peter’s trounce Joes to retain Basil Wiratunga Memorial Shield

St. Peter’s kept the Basil Wiratunga Memorial Shield for the 14th time-in-a-row after beating St. Joseph’s 43 (6 tries, 5 conversions, 1 penalty) to 15 (3 unconverted tries) in their Singer Under-20 Schools Division I A League Rugby encounter played at Longdon Place yesterday.

At half time the scores were 1512 in favour of St. Joseph’s. St. Joseph’s took St. Peter’s by surprise with their style of play in the first half but failed to preserve the advantage as they dropped the ball and also gave away a number of penalties. St. Peter’s, determined to beat their archrivals, kept pressing for most of the second half and were rewarded with four tries. The scoreline gives very little or no indication of the interesting game that was enjoyed by the vast crowd present.

St. Joseph’s started off well and scored in the first minute and in the sixth minute of the first to lead by 10-nil through tries scored by Stefan Gregory and Jason Melder. St. Peter’s, who did not have possession and territory for around 30 minutes, came back through a try scored through some powerful running by the backs, which ended in Dilanka Perera scoring an unconverted try in the 29th minute.

A minute later Kevin Dickson scored a try which was converted by Jerome Canute to take the score to 12-10 in favour of St. Peter’s. The Joes attacked from the centre kick and scored in the 40th minute through Duleep Fernando to lead by 15-12 at the end of the first half.

In the second half, the Joes made a number of unforced errors to help St. Peter’s through a penalty in the 46th minute, which was converted by Canute. Tries in the 53rd, 60th 76th and 80th minutes through Anuradha Herath, Shenal Aponso, Senera Premawardene and Shan Weeraratne respectively put any worries beyond doubt as the Peterites romped to a thumping victory. Canute converted all four tries for St. Peter’s to finish winners by 43-15. Referee Dilroy Fernando.