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by Dinesh Weerawansa

Sri Lanka's 15-a-side national rugby coach, SSP Nimal Lewke yesterday resigned from the post after his official duties at Sri Lanka Police forced him to quit the job. Veteran Sri Lanka rugby coach, Lewke, who was promoted Deputy Commandant of the elite Police Special Task Force (STF), will not be able to devote more time on the coaching of the national team and hence, he has decided to resign.

Kandy Sports Club coach, C.P. Abeygunawardena is strongly tipped to replace SSP Lewke as Sri Lanka's new sevens rugby coach. Besides Abeygunawardena, the others considered for the vacancy are the present Sri Lanka Sevens coach Asanga Seneviratne and the present assistant coach of the 15-a-side national pool, Tony Amit, who has also served as the national coach before.

SSP Lewke, who took over as Sri Lanka rugby coach after the 1998 Asian Games debacle in Bangkok, has shown a good record as a coach since then. When the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union recently decided to have two separate coaches for Sevens and 15s, SSP Lewke was retained as 15-a-side national coach, while his deputy Asanga Seneviratne was made the Sevens national coach.

SSP Lewke, who is due to leave for the United States soon on a special stint on VIP Protection training, did a great job during his two-year term as Sri Lanka national coach. He guided Sri Lanka to a few memorable wins, including a back to back rugby union Test series win against the Australian Northern Territories (2-0) and China (2-0).

Under the guidance of SSP Lewke, Sri Lanka also registered a convincing 2-0 Test series win over the much fancied Taiwan at home. Despite some early setbacks, Sri Lanka also beat China at the last Asiad.

The resignation of SSP Nimal Lewke is a big blow for the national rugby team, which is making preparations for the forthcoming Rugby World Cup qualifying round matches against China and Kazakhstan.

It is less than a month to go before Sri Lanka meets China in a crucial World Cup qualifier in Colombo on March 10. Sri Lanka must win this decisive match to head their group and stand a chance of playing the winners of the other group in a play off to determine the fourth place in the top half of the next Rugby Asiad in Thailand.

Sri Lanka's other World cup meeting will be against the former Russian Republic Kazakhstan.

The national 15-a-side rugby team is also due to play in the 2002 Rugby Asiad in Bangkok and the national pool has been under training, when the bad news of Lewke's resignation came.

Chairman of Selectors, Group Captain, Tikiri Marambe paid a tribute to the outgoing Sri Lanka rugby coach. 'He did a good job to groom the team to the present level. He did a lot of groundwork since taking over after Sri Lanka's poor show at the 1998 Asian Games. He introduced several new techniques and concepts to improve the standard of the game,' Marambe said yesterday.

SSP Lewke is a man with a proven track record. Since his early career with schools and club rugby, he went from strength to strength, producing many champion outfits. He had a series of successes during his proud career as Kandy SC coach, during which the Nittawela club filled their cupboards with trophies.

Though Sri Lanka rugby will badly miss the services of a dedicated veteran coach, his services will now be put in to a worthy cause with the Police STF.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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