Plate still hunted by Trinity

THE trio consisting of DSS, Joes, and Kingswood are still in the open hunt for the Plate Title, as they stand with 23, 20 and 18 points respectively.

- By Arun Pillai

Two crucial Plate encounters in the last week of the League shall determine the winners. If DS could overcome the Kingswood hurdle in Colombo next weekend, then they are guaranteed to grab the Plate regardless of the outcome of the other encounter, as the plot thickens in the heated Plate Segment of the Dialog Schools Rugby League 2025.

St. Joseph's hosting D.S. Senanayake - 3 Aug:

It was a typical scenario of a classic dogfight that transpired on ground instead of air, consisting of an array of Tries damaging each other, that was primarily fuelled by total indiscipline, initially by DS and then followed suit by Joes. However, the Ball handling of both teams was quite impressive, when compared to the utter uncivil and lawless state of rugby that was demonstrated by both teams.

Joes started off proceedings powerfully with their usual dominating mindset, by bulldozing through the DS defence to score their first Try, further aided by two offenses by the visitors. Then a full out clearance kick by the visitors, offers Joes a scrum on DS 22, offering them the opportunity to ram through the defence once again to score yet another Try. Thereafter, all the Tries scored by both teams were through penalties awarded for infringements.

Although DS conceded almost double the number of penalties as Joes, the few handling errors and a lost lineout by Joes prevented them from scoring any further. In addition, offenses committed while attacking inside the opposition's 40, halted the progress of both teams as well, stalemating them at 15 at the break.

While the Saints were on a comfortable lead after doing all the hard work, they simply invited trouble by downgrading to an unsaintly game of rugby, combined by the fact that they were totally unable to defend the DS Rolling Mauls. In one instance, the DS Rolling Maul that was initiated at 50m, was driven all the way to Joes 10, while the defenders continuously committed 'side entry' offenses.