Dushyantha Samarasekera, an Outstanding Rugby Personality

Dushyantha Samarasekera, well-known rugby Personality of Thurstan and CR & FC fame now domiciled in Vancouver Canada is currently on holiday in Sri Lanka. Dushyantha was present with his former Thurstan Rugby colleagues Ananda Karunaratne, Vernon Caldera, Wimal Kulatunge and Ranjit Jayawardena at a recent rugby reception with whom he played for Thurstan from 1962 to 1964.

Vernon Caldera better known in the Cricket circles was in the NCC's 1st Rugby Team, Wimal Kulatunga donned the CR & FC Jersey and Ranjit Jayawardena formed the famous Havelock's crack Third row comprising Gamini Fernando and Noel Brohier in Dickie Jayathileke's champion team during the pristine years of Park Club's History. Ananda, Vernon, Dushyantha, Wimal and Ranjit were all stalwarts of Thurstan's best ever team of 1963 captained by Deepal De Zoysa who later was the co wing forward to legendary Saride Sylva in the CR & FC before crossing over to Kandy.

Dushantha coming from a family of strong Rugby Traditions had his elder brother Jayantha captaining Royal in 1961 while his second brother late Srimal too played for Royal & CR and was latterly the club president Dushyantha walked in to the illustrious CR team of 1965 and played as second row with Rohan Abeysundera but later settled down as a hardy prop forward forming a strong front row combination with late Hadji Omar that was feared by many clubs for decades.

He captained CR in 1971 to win the then prestigious Clifford Cup and later served as the Hony Secretary of SLRFU from 1985 to 1988 along with Malik Samarawickrema and YC Chang.

Dushyantha migrated to Canada in 1989 with his family and now lives in Vancouver. Also in Colombo from Vancouver at the moment is yet another CR stalwart of Dushyantha's vintage old Peterite Hamzi Hameed a wing three quarter of fame Dushyantha's elder son Dinuka played Rugby for Magee secondary school Vancouver and took up to serious refereeing after leaving school.

Commencing from school games Dinuka advanced to club level and was picked among the six outstanding provisional referees.

Dinuka's younger brother Hasith too played for Magee and took up to Rugby refereeing for a short spell. He also represented CR & FC for one season in Colombo but had to give up his sporting career due to his increasing demands from the professional commitments as airline Pilot.

Sunil Karunanayake