Kandy Sports Club to defend League title for fifth year in tandem
Undisputed local Inter-Club Rugby champions, Kandy Sports Club, will defend their title for the fifth year in tandem when they host Sri Lanka Air Force at Nittawela Rugby Stadium up in the Central Hills on December 1.
In fact Kandy will have three back to back home encounters against Sri Lanka Air Force, Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Army at Nittawela. Their rugby loving spectators will be deprived of any home matches for the next four weeks when the Kandy SC will travel down to Colombo for 4 weeks in continuity.
Their encounters against Police SC (21/12), CR&FC (4/1), CH&FC (11/1) and Havelocks (18/1) will be away games in the steamy Colombo conditions. This has been the daunting task for the only upcountry club playing in the top division club rugby. They need to travel down to Colombo on seven occasions while the other clubs need one solitary visit to the Hills.
The upcountry outfit will be led by former Trinity rugby player who learnt his junior rugby in Kandy then shifted to Mauritius and South Africa. He is none other than Nigel Ratwatte, great leader and a team man. He gets ample support comings his way from Kavindu Perera, Damith Dissanayake, Tharinda Ratwatte, Buwanka Udangamuwa, Roshan Weeraratne, Shehan Pathirana, Heshan Kalhara, Sumudu Rankothge, Yakoob Ali, Suhiru Anthony, Danushka Dayan, Buddima Piyarathne, Lavanga Perera, Oshan Perera, Richard Dharmapala, Dhanushka Ranjan, Thilina Wijesinghe and Srinarth Sooriyabandara, who will turn out for them this season wearing the Kandy jersey with immense pride. The outfit will be coached by national rugby legend, Fazil Marija with Lasantha Wijesooriya as the Rugby Chairman with Kapila Silva as Manager.
Kandy SC is fortunate once again to get the support of Cargllls as their Premier Sponsor for rugby at the club. Club is in a stable position thanks to the hard work done by former Royal scrum half, Malik Samarawickrema, who has done a yeoman service for the club to survive and attract the largest support for any club in the country. Kandy Sports Club re-birth commenced in 1992 till then they could not win a single trophy. Due to a leadership issue at CR&FC many Kandy-born players along with some Colombo players came to Kandy to energise the upcountry club. From this point onward winning trophies was a habit. They first won the Clifford Cup in 1992 under Maurice Joachim and two years later, in 1994, won the first League title under Indrajith Bandaranayake.