Royal College opened out their usual game in an eventful 2nd half to beat Isipatana College 22-3 in their inter-school league rugby tournament match played for the Major Milroy Fernando Trophy at Reid Avenue, Colombo, yesterday.

Isipatana, though beaten, were never disgraced and made the host team sweat for their points which came off four tries and one conversion.

The game was closely contested with Royal coming up against stiff resistance from the ‘Green Shirts’ who contested the ball well in the line-outs and during loose play.

Isipatana opened scoring in the 1st minute of play through a penalty kicked off the boot of fly half Prasad Devinda.

Royal responded with a try by No.8 Hamza Hassen who scored when the team won a scrum, five metres away from the try line, and pushed their way through.

Isipatana enjoyed a plenty of possession and counterattacked when they won back possession from the aggressive Royal players. Royal were reduced to 14 men in the latter stages of the 1st half because one of their players were yellow carded by the referee. Royal led 5-3 at half time.

Isipatana kept applying pressure on the Royalists by counterattacking and tackling well. The lads from Havelock Town lived up to Royal’s challenge during the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half.

But Royal went on on the offensive from their onwards and scored tries through Dilshan Palihakkara, Shehan Pathirana and Kalana Amarasinghe.

Murshid Faleel slotted in two conversions.