Two well-judged penalties during the last five minutes of play by fly half Dulaj Perera saw Havelocks SC pull off an exciting 35 points (5 tries, 2 conversions, 2 penalties) to 30 (3 tries, 3 conversions, 3 penalties) win over their traditional rivals CR&FC in their Dialog rugby league ‘A’ division rugby match played at Longden Place yesterday.
The winners led 19-13 lead at lemons.
It was a keenly contested tussle with CR leading 30-29 with five minutes away from the long whistle of referee Dinka Peiris.
But repeated mistakes by CR saw Havelocks being awarded two successive penalties during the dying stages of the game.
Fly half Perera fired over the first of his two penalties to put the Park club back in the lead 32-30. Another infringement saw Havelocks being awarded a penalty in the last couple of minutes and Perera made no mistake with his kick to extend the lead to a handy five-point margin.
It was the golden boot of the Havelocks fly half that made the difference at the end as Perera’s calculated kicks contributed 10 points through two penalties and two conversions.
Leading the try feast for Havelocks was hooker Prasad Madusanka with two tries and winger Nishan Perera and no 8 Ishan Kaluarachchi with one apiece.
For CR, Gayan Dilshan and winger Riza Rafudeen scored a try each with centre Tharinda Ratwatte putting over three penalties and converting three tries.
CH down Airmen 43-31
The fast-improving CH&FC side picked up another win for the season with a close 43 points (6 tries, 5 conversions, 1 penalty) to 31 (3 tries, 2 conversions, 4 penalties) win over Air Force in their Dialog ‘A’ division league match played at Ratmalana yesterday.
At half time CH led 19-14.