Isipatana overcame some anxious moments to beat St. Anthony’s College, Katugastota 27 points to 24 in the inter-schools knock out tournament's semi-final worked off at the Royal College Sports Complex yesterday. Despite the win, Isipatana will not be satisfied with the brand of rugby they exhibited as they fumbled and let down many opportunities that came their way.

St. Anthony’s opened scoring in the very first minute through a penalty that came from the boots of fly half Mohomed Reyal. He did the bulk of the work for St. Anthony’s throughout the match with an outstanding display of rugby but was let down by his team mates, who did not match up to the standards of the opposition. The boys from Havelock Park scored in the 7th minute through a try, a superb break by Vishwajith Wijesinghe, who off loaded the ball only to have Suranga Uthpala touching down. The conversion was successful.

Reyal then put over another penalty to close the gap and the score was 6-7 in favour of the Patanians. Patana forwards kept dominating the rucks and mauls, but were held back by the spirited Antonian defence. The Antonians broke the shackles courtesy of a drop goal fired by centre Tharanga Bandara in the 34th minute.

At the turn around, the score read 9-7 in favour of the Antonians. After the short whistle, the Patanians played some fast rugby often leaving their opponents surprised with some dazzling runs, but they failed to add the final touches often losing the ball at pivotal moments.

On the contrary, the Antonians took most of the opportunities presented to them and opened scoring. Reyal got the scoreboard ticking again with his powerful kicks and St. Anthony’s score was boosted again when Bandara scored a try in the 51st minute.

Then came the Patana onslaught started on the 54th minute. The first of the tries came through Vishwajith Jayasinghe, whose try went unconverted. The second try came courtesy of Srinath Sooriyabandara, who brushed away the Antonian defence with some superb stepping and ran over 35 meters to touch down.

Anuruddha Srinath planted down the last try and with that took his side to the finals of the tournament.