Remembering Bertie Dias in the midst of the 'Bradby'

Sharm de Alwis

RUGBY: When Trinity sports chronicles are written Bertie Dias will have a special niche to heave in sight as a spectacular performer even though his brother Rajah Dias Sumanasekera won similar awards and accolades in rugger and boxing. Bertie, himself, is a Lion at rugger and hockey.

If I never quite made the team and missed being called at the Prize giving, I've had my cup of joy filled to the brim for I have witnessed with ecstasy alternating with agony, Trinity rugger from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper. I have seen that "great things are done when man and mountain meet".

Bertie Dias met the mountains in his infancy and he fashioned out for Trinity a proper and appointed place in rugger that will for ever be honoured. He forsook hockey of which sports discipline he was a Lion, to concentrate in '56 on Trinity's rugby which had flourished unbeaten in the Bradby from 1952, Bertie's impetus saw Trinity expending the Bradby wins for a record six years from 1952 to '57.

To Colonel Bertie Dias the game was war without guns. He was the original 'think tank' who studied the opposition's strength and weakness. But it can also be candidly said that in his first year of '56 he had a vulgarity of riches which had been soured by Harry Hardy in the previous years at 1st XV and under 17 levels of the reservoir.

Bertie had more than four aces in the pack and they all were awarded the Lions captain David Frank, Wilhelm Balthazaar, Raji de Sylva, Franklin Jacob and Gamini Weerasinghe with Mike de Alwis, Jinna Dias Desinghe left out on reasons of 'over weight in the carriage'.

Others who were eminent and were denied the Lion were Sena de Sylva, Uvais Odayar, Nimal Maralande, Sene Ettipola and Vernon Boteju, A R. Frank and Ken de Joodt were kept on cotton wool to receive the accolade in subsequent years.

Quite aware that success comes before work only in the dictionary, Bertie Dias journeyed and he enjoyed every moment until the final death blast of the referee's whistle.

From 1956 and '57 did Bertie start at the top and work down in his second coming from '73 to '76 and his third coming from '80 to '84? Statistically, he had 6:5 Bradby shield wins and if you ignore the pedestrian thinking, dwell on the names of great players he created in a span of eleven years even though they were not on the trot - add to the names already mentioned, Jeffrey Yu.

CY Ching Snr and Jnr, Rohan and Lanil Sourjah, SY Suan, Gamini Balasuriya, Rajiv Bandaranayake who revolutionized three-quarter play, Ravi Ponnambalam, Lalith Pilapitiya, Byron Fernando and Ashan Ratwatte (just a smattering from the vast gathering) and you have a galaxy of stars.