PANAJI
The TRYmates Seniors Men dominated all facets of the game to win 4-1 against CrocoTRYles in finals of the Halloween Touch Rugby held at Father Agnel Ashram, Verna on Monday.
CrocoTRYles put up a stiff resistance,but the TRYmates were too strong. TRYmates had a rampaging game and touched down twice in quick succession. There were also tries from CrocoTRYles, Anish and Brandon Crasto who strategically distributed the ball all afternoon.
Tej Shirodkar, 19, the co-owner of TRYmates was able to field one of their strongest teams in Season 3 in all the categories. It was not long before they were able to apply pressure on the Saints line in their earlier matches. Saints had a formidable player, former Goa national player Ismail A Mulla, in their ranks. He was quick to dart down the blind side and open the scoring for Saints in the U-17 boys game.
TRYmates were able to continue the pressure in most of the matches with tries coming from the wings. However, it was not all going the way of TRYmates as Saints U-10 boys managed to pull off a 3-2 win in another hotly contested match. The Saints could not bust through the TRYmates line and looked for gaps by shifting across the defence. But the TRYmates defenders were committed reducing the chances of creating gaps. The Saints failed to trouble the scoreboard as TRYmates were able to refocus and dominate most of their games.
TRYmates finished the Halloween Touch Rugby GoaAmche Season 3 topping the board with four wins in the U-10 Girls, U-10 Mixed, U-17 Boys and Seniors Men. They emerged runners-up in U-10 Boys, U-17 Girls, Seniors Women and Seniors Mixed categories. Saints were close on heels with three wins in the U-10 Boys, U-13 Mixed and U-17 Mixed. They bagged the runners-up trophy in the U-10 Girls, U-10 Mixed, U-13 Boys and U-17 Boys categories.
The CrocoTRYles (Current Goa Schools Touch league champions, Juniors) won matches in the U-13 Boys, U-13 Girls and U-17 Girls. They bagged the runners-up title in the U-17 Mixed and Seniors Men category. Crazy Pirates were at the bottom of the table with two wins in the Seniors Women and Seniors Mixed category while they bagged two runners-up trophies in the U-13 Girls and U-13 Mixed categories.
The Halloween Touch Rugby, a GoaAmche season 3 held by Goa Rugby and Goa Touch, witnessed four club franchises, Crazy Pirates (North Goa), CrocoTRYles (South Goa), Saints (East Goa) and TRYmates (West Goa) slug it out for top honours. The third season received an overwhelming response as 500 players across four teams participated in the tourney. There were 30 games played in all.
Chrisha Lobo, Soham Shirodkar, Ethan Fernandes, Anita Nishad, Heasten Pereira refereed the games and had their work cut out keeping up with the pace of play employed by all the teams. The end of the afternoon session culminated with all teams taking centre stage at Father Agnel Ashram, Verna ground.
Champions for each age group were announced and were presented with their trophies by Mark Seagraves, former professional footballer who played for Liverpool, Norwich City, Manchester City, Bolton Wanderers and Swindon Town. AAP leader Valmiki Naik was the guest of honour. A minute's silence was observed at the prize distribution function to pay respect to Anthony Foley, Munster coach, whose sudden death has set a pall of gloom in the rugby world.
