Category: News

Thurstan College will be celebrating their Golden Jubilee this year and an Inter School Rugby sevens tournament at the Royal Stadium on March 24 and 25 will herald the celebrations and will wind up with a Grand Rugby Dinner in July. The Tournament Committee for the event is headed by Chula Dharmadasa.

Thurstan began playing Rugby in 1956/57 but took part in active inter school matches only in 1958. The 1956 team was captained by Errol Van Twest, while in 1957 the captain was Surath Wickramasinghe. The inaugural Thurstan team in 1958 too was captained by Surath Wickremasinghe. Some of the stalwarts in this team were Jeff Ratnam who later on became a legend in Ceylon Rugby by captaining Air Force, Havelocks and Sri Lanka and became the first national coach of Sri Lanka. Undoubtedly he was one of the finest rugby players Sri Lanka has ever seen. Also in this team were well known sports writer par excellence T. M. K. Samat, Rafi Abdeen of boxing fame, Wigna Sellamuttu, late Shivantha Thambiah, late Anton Wickremaratne and the late Lionel Wickramasekera. The team was coached by Brian Mills.

However Thurstan stormed into prominence in 1963 with a team coached by the late Kavan Rambukwelle and captained by fiery wing forward, the late Deepal de Zoysa (CR and Kandy skipper). His co-wing forward was another classic player: Ranjit Jayawardena (Havelocks, University and Air Force) with Vernon Caldera (NCC) better known in the cricket circles occupying the no 8 position. Other stalwarts of this team were Dushyantha Samarasekera ( who captained CR), Sunil Jayakody ( who captained Dimbula), Srinath Gunasekera (who went on to captain University) and the late Indra Piyatissa.

Thurstan can also be proud of their contribution to national rugby coming from Harsha Mayadunne Dusyantha Samarasekera and Sunil Karunanayake serving as President, Secretary and Treasurer respectively in the SLRFU. It is also noteworthy to mention that two of countrys leading rugby scribes T. M. K. Samat and Lal Gunasekera too represented Thurstan at rugby.

1963 was a memorable season for Thurstan where they lost only to Trinity and scored glorious victories over two of the strongest sides Royal and Zahira with Ranjit Jayawardena scoring two match winning tries in both these games. The match against S. Thomas’ at the Race Course was abandoned due to poor ground conditions.

Thurstan continued this trend and produced a rich crop of players like CR & FC stalwart Chula Dharmadasa, S. Karunathileke, Tissa Nanayakkara, Upul Pieris Kokum Seneviratne all of whom donned the national jersey with distinction. Other well known players were Sunil Jayakody (Dimbula), Wimal Kulatunga (CR) Mangala Ratnayake, Wasantha Perera, Sathyapriya Liyanage (All of Army), SSP Upali Hewage, Rohan Boudweyn (Dimbula), Harsha Mayadunne (Navy) and Ajanta Rodrigo (Police), Asela Weerasighe (Havelocks) and Charles Perera (CR).

Thurstan did well to clinch the Presidents trophy in 1998 under Nuwan Kumara who became a youth national cap and 2005 under Amila Eranga beat Isipathana to wrest the Jabar trophy for the first time in 38 years. In 2006 under the captaincy of Ishara Muthumala Thurstan won the first ever U20 Sevens trophy beating the reigning champions Isipathana College.

The Rugby Big Match with Isipathana College for the Abdul Jabbar Trophy is scheduled to be played in early October. The exact date is yet to be finalized by Isipathana College. We will keep you informed as soon as we get the confirmation.

Thurstan College Colombo opened its rugby seasons with an easy win over St
Sylvester’s College, Kandy in a inter school rugby fixture. Thurstanites
outclassed St. Sylvester’s College by 34 (2goals, 4 tries) points to nil in
their opening game at the Havelock Park on Wednesday.

Thurstan opened their scoring with a try from third row-Sasanka Ariyaratne but
center Rakitha Bandara couldn’t add the extra points.
St Sylvester’s got an opportunity to score when they were awarded a penalty, but
failed to capitalize on the chance and made no impact on the game right from the
beginning.

But Thurstan captain Amila Eranga broke the St Sylvester’s defense to score a
try under the post in the next minute, which was easily converted by Rakitha
Bandara to take the lead 12-nil.

Another sharp move by the Thurstan skipper paved the way to strong Rakitha
Bandara to score a sensational try running almost 70 yards to see the touchline.
Rakitha himself added the extra points and Thurstanites were in a commanding
position at the short whistle. Scoreboard read as 17-nil in Thurstan’s favour.
Kandy boys couldn’t do much to avoid Thurstanites resistance.

It was almost one-way traffic in the second half. Kandy lads tried hard to break
the Thurstan’s defense but had no opportunity to add points in their favour.
Thurstan’s winger Suminda Tharaka scored two tries in the second half and
Thurstan unable to add the extra points to those two tries as one convertion was
missed while the other was skipped without even trying.

Fly half N P Nonis crossed the opponents’ line to score another try for Thurstan
and winger Shane Aravinda made no mistake in adding the extra points to read the
final score 34 -nil. St. Sylvester’s College couldn’t hold the Thurstan’s
resistance and went back to hill capital with bitter experience.

Thurstan will meet another school from Kandy-St Anthony’s College in their next
game scheduled on July 27 at the Havelock Park.