Avishka, Imesh heroics give Wesley their sixth win
Wesley centre and standin captain Avishka Lee and flanker Imesh Aponso put up a stupendous show and helped them coast to a comfortable 26 points to 14 win over last week’s giant killers St. Peter’s in a crucial second round match of the Singer U20 inter- school rugby tournament played at Longden Place yesterday.
Avishka who normally man the wing, now deputising for the injured Denister Goonetilleke moved in as centre. Thus he played a pivoted role by scoring 16 of Wesley’s 26 points scoring two tries and booting over the three conversions while Imesh contributed two tries.
Wesley took a commanding 19-6 lead at lemons.
Finally at the end Wesley made up their points through three goals and a try to a try and three penalties scored by St. Peter’s.
The Double Blue boys dominated proceedings in the first half as they had the Peterites struggling for survival. Petes star player and fly half Stephan Sivaraj limping with a knee injury kept them in the game booting over two penalties in the first half.
But the Wesleyites always had the game under control thanks to the two tries scored by Avishka and one by Imesh in the initial half with Avishka converting two of them. This saw them taking a healthy 13 point lead.
The early lead taken by Wesleyites proved vital for them as they were given some anxious moments by the Peterites in the second half. In reality Petes succeeded to reduce their deficit through an unconverted try scored by flanker Bilal Hilmy which followed by Sivaraj booting over his third penalty.
Wesley was reduced to 14 players with prop forward Shamail Amit being shown a yellow card. But that did not deter the gr i t t y Wesleyites as their playmaker Avishka Lee leading from the front and combining with Imesh who scored the match winning try for Wesley helped them coast through to victory.
The win was sixth of the tournament which also saw them earning a crucial bonus point which no doubt will be of value to them with two matches remaining to be played. Referee – Irshad Cader
- MSA