Zahira College registered their second win of the rugby season when they beat a fighting Thurstan outfit by 28 points (4 tries, 4 conversions) to 13 (a try, a conversion, 2 penalties) in their schools rugby league encounter played at Maradana yesterday.
Though Zahira won convincingly Thurstan came up with a good counter performance but could not bring in the points as they would have wished. They went very near the Zahira goal line several times but just could not penetrate the defence put up by the burly Zahira pack.
Zahira managed to score only two more tries in the second half to give them the convincing win by a margin of 15 points. Their third try was a gift when the Thurstan players were trying to clear the ball from their in-goal area. The clearance kick was collected by TM Chunchee who charged down the kick and had to just fall to touch down.
Basith had an easy conversion to give them 21 points at that point.
Zahira finished it off with another try when MA Abdeen put the finishing touches to several moves with him dummying his way over.
BM Hasan converted the try for Zahira to get the 28 points while Thurstan could not increase on their 13 points they scored in the first half.
Thurstan opened scoring in the first minute when a Zahira player was spotted off side and Nethupu Lasanda put over the penalty and also put over a second penalty for 6-0 lead.
Zahira buckled down to play some constructive rugby moving the ball about their back division and the three quarters scoring a try by NA Ahamed in the 28th minute. The conversion was taken by Basith who succeeded to give them the 7-6 lead.
Thurstan came back wand flanker Chanutha Perera scored the try for Lasandu to convert and give Thurstan the lead again 13-7.
However, Zahira continued to move the ball about and in the dying minutes of the first half and N Abdullah went over for a try.
Basith converted for Zahira to take a slender lead again, 14-13 at the short whistle.
