Richard Dharmapala – the first junior national rugby captain from Science College
Sri Lanka Youth, Commonwealth under 18 player Richard Dharmapala will become Science College Mount Lavinia’s first Youth National Captain in their school rugby history which spans over 40 years. Having contributed to the Junior National team regularly 
over the past few years, No doubt that Richard Dharmapala’s selection will add to the already impressive list of rugby achievement of this school from Mount Lavinia when he takes over leadership at the next weeks Junior Rugby Asiad 2013 which will take place in Taipei. The winners of this tournament will book their berth for the Top division in the Asian region with sides such as Hong Kong, Japan and Korea in 2014.
Science College, a leading rugby playing school in the country, took to rugby in the late 70’s under the name of Sattissara Maha Vidyalaya. They did not take long to hit the spotlight and in 1981 when they beat their affluent neighbors St. Thomas College Mt Lavinia. Two years later in 1983 the School was re-named as Science College and continued its rugby journey with some decent performances in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Although the School was struggling to produce competitive teams consistently in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Science college hit a high in the late 2000’s and continues to be a dominant force to date, having notched up victories against majority or all of the leading rugby playing schools in the past few seasons. With a student population slightly over 1500, the school accredits its rugby success to the passion among the students and its rugby loving old boys, with a rich track record of producing solid rugby players. The school has produced large number of players who have represented the country with distension. Among them some of those who stand out are Damith Jayawardena, Hilmy Saeed, UK Ranjith, Asitha Botheju. Ranjan de Silva. Sanjeewa Jayasinghe and Nazeem Mohamed. The last two names took Science College to the next level. First it’s Sanjeeva Jayasinghe a sevens specialist played for Havies and later on went to represent Kandy SC. He played in both forms of the game. Nazeem Mohamed also a sevens specialist represented CH and FC captained the country in the shorter version of the game. He became the first Science College student to become a National Selector a position which he still he holds.
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus