The wetness made the ball difficult to handle and play mainly depended on the scrums and mauls combined with dribbling and kicking. A few ‘knock ons’ tended to be ignored by the referee. Having noted our superiority in the scrums during the first leg, Trinity had developed its own strategies. They had changed their pack to a heavier one and had equipped their hooker with leather shin guards. The apparently unintended kicks during the scrums fell painfully on the Royal forward’s bare shins. Retaliation was fruitless. During the first half of the game, emboldened by their home ground they did all the attacking; their hefty three quarters drawing their men and passing out to their sturdy wingers, but to no avail, because of Tony Anghie and David Raymond who according to Thambapillai "tackled their hearts out." One of these encounters happened at our five yard line. Tony Anghie, with two Trinitians in pursuit, fell on Trevor Anghie, who was trying to clear the ball. In the melee that followed, the ball rolled into the Royal goal with the two Trinitians and the Anghie brothers practically on top of it. To Thambapillai, who was watching from the pavilion, "Tony Anghie appeared to have touched the ball a split second earlier than the Trinitian." However, this was not the perception of the referee, who was none other than our coach Sydney de Zoysa, and he gave the try to Trinity.

Although the conversion of the try failed, Trinity’s courage surged and they continued their attacking game to the thrill of the Kandy spectators. Just before the half time whistle, one of their sturdy wingers, practically transporting our light weight winger Desmond van Twest on his shoulders, went over the line; but that try was also not converted.

The second half started with Trinity leading 6-0 and a vision of the shining Bradby Shield continuing to remain in their Principal’s Office. We kicked off with Sydney de Zoysa’s ‘do or die’ exhortation, burning a hole in our minds. Oh boy, we went hell-bent in our tactics as we had never done before. We will let Thambapillai describe what happened; "Royal seemed to get their second wind and Trinity seemed a spent force. Royal won the line outs, thanks to Cader and the scrums and mauls due to Varagunam’s slick hooking. In one of the movements, Dennis Hapugalle, the fly half, receiving a neat snappy pass from scrum half Daya Perera and taking the ball on the run, sold a peach of dummy to vis-a-vis Schokman, drew the first inside and sent the ball to Raymond who passed it to Tony Anghie. Tony, drawing the opposing winger passed to Desmond van Twest who touched down." Desmond van Twest’s perception of this try is that just before the ball was passed to him he had received a bone crunching, muscle crippling tackle from a Trinity forward and was gingerly climbing on to his feet when he saw the ball flying towards him. In his words he suddenly "got a boost of adrenalin and the pain in his body miraculously vanished."

He managed to evade and outsprint Trinity’s would be tacklers and scampered clear down the right wing to the touch line. A huge sigh, not a cheer, arose from the Kandy supporters in the crowd. Trevor Anghie had his first missed conversion and we were behind 6-3 but equal on the grand total. However, tension arose and there was still a possibility of Trinity hanging on to the shield. Then we dealt the coup de grace starting in a scrum within Trinity’s 25 yard line. We, as usual, got the ball and worked our three quarter line with the ball reaching right winger Ana Gunawardena. Trevor Anghie suddenly appeared from his full back position and backed him and received a tricky pass which he carried over the line along with two Trinitians hanging on his back. A cheer rose up from the few Royalist supporters and some of the more mature Trinitians.

Trevor Anghie converted and we led 8-6 comfortably in line for the Bradby Shield. The few minutes, that was left of play, were taken up by Daya Perera, having decided he had had enough and much to the relief of the rest of the team, kept kicking to touch the ball that was constantly coming out to our advantage from the scrums and line outs.

During the post mortem of the match, Sydney de Zoysa had a confession to make about that controversial try by Trinity. He said; "I know chaps the first try I awarded to Trinity should have been a five yard scrum. My heart was breaking, but I had to award Trinity that try." We who had sweated our hearts out on that mud field were not too impressed. But Thambapillai, the thorough gentleman that he was, reacted with; "it was characteristic of Sydney and the Royalists of his generation."

We cannot recall the post match celebrations nor the award of the Bradby Shield that was accepted by our captain Ashy Cader, but what we remember was that Sydney de Zoysa, on return to Colombo, did honour his debt to us with a magnificent dinner. He picked us up in a Police truck, cutting a roundabout or two on the way home just to add a frill and possibly a thrill to our victory.

We apologise for having written this account in a self-congratulatory tone. However, we maintain that our team was unique in several aspects. We were the first team to win the Bradby Shield for Royal. We were the first and possibly the only team to win the Bradby with 14 ‘first season fledglings’. A member of our team - Geoff Weinman, was the first and possibly the only schoolboy who played for All Ceylon while still in school. And ending on a lighter note, if you look at our group photo, you will notice that we are in blazers embellished with our College Colours emblem. Our previous teams and probably all of our subsequent teams were all photographed in their rugby jerseys!