Navy Sports Club created a piece of sensation when they beat the fancied Ceylonese Rugby & Football Club (CR&FC) 18-3 in a closely contested Cup Championship encounter of the Caltex League rugby tournament at Welisara yesterday.

Navy thought and played like a winning team and collected their points through two tries, one conversion, one penalty and a drop goal in response to CR&FC which could manage only a penalty kick at goal.

The winners played with a purpose right form the kick off and did well in the first half despite CR&FC enjoying a larger share of possession.

Navy drew first blood with the game 18 minutes old when fly half Nilufer Ibrahim followed a kick by Erande Weerakkody and took the ball over the try line.

CR’s forwards weren’t impressive in the first half and the team’s threes too found advancing hard, in the face of a solid defence put up by Navy.

CR’s Reza Mubarak slotted in a penalty in the 21st minute of play to reduce the deficit in points.

Navy’s Samantha Lakshan dropped a goal ten minutes from half time to help his team take the ‘breather’ with a lead of five points.

Play in the second half was scrappy at times but Navy began dominating the game with their fast running backs.

Full back Nuwan Hettiarachchi shone in attack and made some piecing runs.

Hettiarachchi struck a penalty in the 38th minute of play to make the score 11-3 in favour of Navy.

The ‘sailors’ had the CR players dumbfounded when Hettiarachchi sliced through their defence and planted the ball close to the posts. Lakshan added the extra points to help Navy avenge the first round defeat to CR.

Navy’s Erande Weerakkody was handed a yellow card by referee Pradeep Fernando.