As Royal College and Dharmaraja College, Kandy walked in to the Royal College Sports Complex, neither team would have ever predicted the events of the games even in their wildest dreams. The game saw some truly memorable moments as well as another shocker that kept true to this year’s highly unpredictable Schools’ Rugby Season.

Click on the link to view the complete album – Rugby First XV – Royal vs. Dharmaraja

Royal trailed 03 – 10 at half time although the first points on the board went to Royal, and the situation got even worse for Royal as shortly after the commencement of the second half, Dharmaraja stormed through the Royal side to put some real daylight between them and the Royalists with the scores at Royal 03 – 17 Dharmaraja. But the Royalists were not going down without a fight, and the Royal pack put up yet another stunning display of strength to put on immense pressure on the Rajans. The offense was too much for the Kandyans, as a vintage Rimze Jamaldeen play down the wing (a cheeky chip over the wing) gave way for Udesh Ranaweera to secure a try setting up the Royal comeback. Bringing the deficit down, the Royal forwards kept the pressure up on the Kandyans, coming close to scoring on a couple of occasions. They were unable to secure any points in those chances, and an feeling of desperation was building among the crows as the Royalists came closer and closer to score but hadn’t finished off an offense yet.

With just about twenty five minutes left in the game, a shocking turn of events saw the linesman on the Sky Pavilion end begin to walk off the field in reaction to aggressive crowd reactions, possibly due to two yellow cards being brandished in the process of the game and the third one possibly coming the way of Dharmaraja. To the shock of players on both teams, the match referees made the decision to walk off the field. The matter was resolved shortly by the Match Organizing Committee, but the referees returned to the field only under the protection of the police force. The brake of play seemed to work for Royal, as the offense seemed to intensify with the resumption of play. Azman Khan made a powerful run to smash through the Dharmaraja line which set up an eventual try for Royal, which was scored by Banuka Gamage down the Sky Pavilion wing. Trailing by two points with just five minutes to go, the result of the game literally rested on the boot of Captain Rimze Jamaldeen. Taking the conversion from the Sky Pavilion wing, he put through an amazing conversion to bring the scores level.

Royals efforts payed off, as they managed to end the season with a draw, much to the surprise of the undefeated League Champs.It was truly a stunning display of Rugby put on by the Royalists to bring the season to an end. It was quite a challenging season for the Boys in Blue & Gold, but as shown perseverance and heart prevailed as the Royalists left the field to standing ovations by the supporters who Believed in Royal till the final minute of the final game.