Last Season
Having the luxury of the Fijian stalwart Pio Tuwai, Sri Lanka Army was one of the surprise packages of the Dialog Rugby League 2014. Soldiers were led by Rohitha Rajapaksa during the season who has shifted his jersey colours to Havelock SC for the year 2015.
Army SC locked horns with the boys from Longden place as the first match where they lost the season opener by fifteen points to twenty one. From that point onwards they won seven matches out of the fourteen matches they played.
The Soldiers scored thirty eight tries in total for the fifteen weeks and twenty four of them bisected the uprights. The only drop goal for the season came in courtesy of their ex-skipper Rohitha Rajapaksa in the match against Havelock SC.
Key Players
Asoka Jayalal will own the first slot on players to watch in the Army outfit. Donning the Army jersey for six long years he will play alongside his team in the position Hooker as well as a prop in times of need.
Imanka Ariyapala having played his fair share of rugby at Vidyartha College – Kandy chose the soldiers five years ago and since then he has been loyal to the outfit. He will have his name in the second slot in the list of key players. Playing in the center position; he will play alongside Mohammed Rizwi hailing from the green machines.Having four years of experience under his belt, Rizwi will be third player to watch in Army SC outfit.
Together with Jayala and Ariyapala these three players will strengthen the soldiers ambush. Asoka Jayalal speaking to ThePapare.com
“We have a good combination of new and experienced players so the main challenege would be streamline the perfromance and use it to gain the maximum advantage.”
New blood
Kamesh Fernando ending his school rugby career with St.Peter’s College the previous year, starts his club rugby journey with the soldiers. He will extend his services in the maiden tournament from the position of wing.
Apart from Kameh who joins the soldiers from Colombo there are two players hailing from the hill country. Ashan Bandara will join the outfit from Vidyaratha College – Kandy whilst Bavantha Perera will will commence his inaugural club season from Sylvester’s College – Kandy.
Ashan Bandara will play in the fly half position while his hometown buddy will play in the Full Back position.
Coaching
Having the services of a foreign coach for the season Army SC would be mentored by Feveri Verebula. Verebula having a vast experience in the coaching field was a part of the Papua New Guniea 7`s team last year. He also has had the honour of coaching North Harbour club in New-Zealand.
His fellow country-men Imanueli Veikso will assist him the fitness aspect. Together with the two Fijians Anuruddha Rathnayake, Nisal Meepage and Akram Rifa will be in-charge of the troops.
With two foreign coaches and zero foreign players the tussle from the soldiers to hold fortress in the league would be an interesting one without doubt. Local talent mixed up with experience they will for sure aim nothing less than the top spot of the leauge.
Squad: Wasanda De Costa – Aravinda Karunaratne – Nishantha Kobbekaduwa – Asoka Jayalal – Sameera Wickramanayake – Sampath Rosa – Omantha Paathiwaththe – Lahiru Sellapperuma – Manoj Silva – Dileepa Niroshan – Mohammed Akram – Chameera Silva – Upul Abeyratne – Roshan Sampath – Mohammed rizvi – Thusitha Senanayake – Nalaka Maduranga – Nishanka Kumara – Roshan Sanjeeewa – Imanka Ariyapala – Dinushan Iranga – Ashan Bandara – Ranjan Rukmal – Suranga Herath – Vinod Kumar – Manjula Weerasinghe – Gayan Salinda – Mihiran Perera – Pradeep Rathnayake – Madusanka Chandrasekara – Victor Pradeep – Gayashan Dikumbura – Salinda Ekanayake – Bavantha Perera – Maduranga Kasun – Kamesh Fernando
