St. Joseph’s College Maradana dealt a hard hand to the already struggling Kingswood College Kandy, and agonised them to their second worst defeat of the season. Incidentally, their worst defeat was against Royal College on Week 1, where they went down 5-60. It is also worthy to note that Joes bettered their stance against Kingswood since last season, when they beat them 48-15 in Kandy.
The game was played in front of a virtually-empty venue, as everyone already knew how things were going to pan out. Kingswood did have their moments during several of their onslaughts in which they got very close to the hosts’ goal line. However, resilient defence techniques employed by Joes, consistently spoilt the visitors’ daunting efforts. Kingswood never stopped or got weary of tackling the larger-than-life Joes, even until the end. However, the Saints still kept running the Ball to score successive Tries until the last long whistle.
Joes were able to execute and experiment a running game, even with their Forwards, with extensive footwork used to evade, deceive and perplex the defending tacklers. Another familiar scenario observed when playing against smaller-built opponentswas that a single tackler was mostly unable to stop or bring down a Joe, due to the sheer force of mass combined with velocity.
The hosts portrayed improved discipline in this game, giving away only 8 penalties, but their Ball handling was below par again, and should be worked-on and enhanced before their next game against Wesley. Overall, this outing turned out to be a decent practice game for the Maradana Lads, against a reasonably good defensive side, that fought vehemently to protect their borderline until the end. Joes could use these learnings to take into their next tangible target; The Knockouts Trophy!
St. Joseph’s beat Kingswood 55–5