Royal vs. Pathana the pick of the week
We are now into the final leg of the league schedule and after the win last week by Pathana, they are brimming with confidence. They have played some quality rugby in the past few games after an initial blip, and I cannot see why they should not go on to win this game as well. RC on the other hand has some serious soul searching to do after their rather lacklustre performance in the Bradby.
Whether it was the occasion that got to them will be seen this Friday when the green wave invades the Royal Complex. Pathana have improved tremendously and unfortunately, their claim to the league title lies in the hands of DSS turning tables on Trinity, which is unlikely. Pathana will definitely rue their poor performance against Vidyartha which ended in a draw. If not for that, the way that they have gone about demolishing the opposition has been awesome. In fact their only loss was to Trinity and that too was lost due to some individualistic play as opposed to Trinity brilliance. Pathana are ferocious tacklers and despite their relative smaller stature, they were able to bring down a heavier opposition with their tenacious tackling. This was evident in the game against Trinity, and they will be up against a similar set of Royal forwards.
Against SPC, Royal used their forwards to effectively starve the SPC three quarters of possession. Will they attempt a similar ploy, will be interesting to observe as Pathana are dangerous with ball in hand. However if starved of possession, will they be able to revert to ‘plan B’ is another question, or will they perish. Overall Pathana have looked quite composed with all round skills and hence the chances of them being able to adjust to changes in the style of play by Royal look good.
Hopefully the players will take centre stage this week as opposed to the referee and his antics who stole the limelight last weekend.
We are now into the third week of the club rugby season and so far Navy, HSC, Kandy and CR occupy the top four slots. Kandy beat CH last week by a pretty narrow margin and although CH does not possess big names this season, they appear to be playing as a cohesive unit. CH will host the Upcountry Lions this weekend and this will provide us an opportunity to see UCL in Colombo for the first time. CR gets a free weekend this week and will then move into the traditional CR/Havies the following weekend. It would be fascinating as HSC are captained by a CR crossover this year and some ill feeling could spill onto the field of play.
On the international games this week, we will see the third and final test between NZ/Ireland, Wallabies/Wales and SA/England. Whilst the series may be lost in all of these instances, last week’s performance by Ireland was thrilling and it was the final minute that we saw NZ pull through. If that performance was anything to go by, we should have a cracker this week as well, and Dan Carter has been sidelined through injury.
It was thought provoking to hear the former All Black Scrum half turned commentator, Justin Marshall, point out to all the viewers how the likes of McCaw and a few others resort to ‘jersey tugging’ to delay an opposition player from charging down a kick. The slight resultant loss of time gives the NZ player ample time to clear or pass the ball out wide. The referees are generally missing this at it happens away from the scene of action and their peripheral vision. Observant assistant referees should be able to spot this, but are busy tracking the ball to mark out the line out point. In fact in another super rugby game, we saw McCaw run between the opposition and the ball carrier on numerous occasions so as to prevent the opposition from getting their man. This is not done in a blatant fashion, but very subtly and needs a well trained eye to pick this form of transgression.
The new look Wallabies are yet to jell as a team. I believe that they are pretty strong on paper, and the players selected have had strong performance in the Super Rugby season. They had a mighty scare last and a penalty in jury time saved the day.
The SA brand of rugby appears to be too hot for the new look England side to handle and unless something dramatic were to happen, SA should win comfortably although a couple of new faces will be added to the starting line up.
(The writer can be contacted on scrumaf@gmail.com)
