The valiant Samuel Maduwantha and the scintillating wing-three-quarter Naveen Henakankanamage bagged the awards on offer at ThePapare School Rugby awards where Henakankanamage was adjudged the ‘Most Promising Schools’ Rugby Player’ for the year along with his award for being the ‘Top Try Scorer’ in the league and Samuel Maduwantha took home the award for the ‘Top Point Scorer’ of the concluded Schools’ Rugby League.
The award ceremony was held yesterday (15th) at the Racecourse Grounds where the two players were awarded their trophies for their achievements in the concluded league tournament.
The Singer Schools’ Rugby League 2016 saw the emergence of the newest crop of enthusiastic and talented players coming up the ranks donning their school colours. Among the lot, there were quite a few who displayed exceptional talent during the tournament, hence, the ‘Most Promising Schools’ Rugby Player’ award was a tough choice to make.
ThePapare.com gave its ardent fans the opportunity to choose the desired candidate. Our panel of rugby experts nominated eight players representing the final eight teams of the cup competition allowing the fans to cast their vote on the preferred choice.
After weeks of voting, the candidate for the award was an obvious choice as Naveen Henakankanamage was conferred with the title having amassed the most number of votes ahead of the other nominees. Naveen’s total number of votes counted to 8093 while coming in second, Samuel Maduwantha collected 6586 votes. The third place in the overall tally went to Ashok Wijekumar of Royal College with 6017.
The blitzkrieging wing-three-quarter was in full swing this season delivering when it mattered the most. Scoring a total of 12 tries in the season, he was phenomenal in S. Thomas’ success story as they ended runners-up in the league.
His try count gave him the privilege of taking home a second award which was the trophy for the ‘Top Try Scorer’ of the Schools Rugby League.
The lone warrior from the hill-capita,l Samuel Maduwantha was the deserving choice when it came to the ‘Top Points Scorer’ award with him collecting a staggering 105 points including two long-distance drop goals. He will be remembered for his placekicking abilities and for taking St. Anthony’s College to a better standing compared to their performances in the last few years.
The award for the Most Promising Rugby Player was presented by Sri Lanka National skipper Sudarshana Muthuthanthri while Tuskers player Rizah Mubarak presented the Top Points Scorer award to Samuel Maduwantha. Henakankanamage’s Top Try Scorer award was presented by the former national player and High-Performance Manager of the SLRFU Inthi Marikkar.
Meanwhile, both Naveen and Samuel posed a picture with the former legends Michael Jayasekera who is now the chairman of national selectors and Hisham Abdeen who also a national selector.
