One of the prominent schools in , Kandy is Trinity College. It has a distinguished history in unearthing several personalities, who reached the pinnacle not only in the field of education but also in sports, who glittered like gems, especially in rugby and cricket and hit the top. Mohan Sahayam was one of them who brought great honour to the school and country handling the oval shaped ball.  

Mohan Sahayam’s father was G.A.Y.Sahayam a leading Maths teacher in that era who served for a long time at Trinity College later retired as Vice Principal. Elsie was his mother who was a housewife. He was born to a family of five with three boys and two girls. His elder brother, Baskaran who is in his 90’s is the oldest living hockey Lion from Trinity, while Mano is his youngest brother. His eldest sister Lali is in Chennai, India while the youngest Sunitha is living in London.

Mohan was in the golden age of Trinity College Rugby, Cricket and Athletics, where he excelled in all three sports and had the privilege of leading the rugger team in 1964. He was famously known for his dummies most of the time, he sold these dummies like he was selling ‘Kadala. which were called Sahayam Specials’ He would smile whilst dummying and on a few occasions he sold dummies even to spectators. He can be rated as one of the best fly halves the country has ever produced in rugby.  

He was a close follower of Nimal Maralanda, one of the sporting greats from his own school, who subsequently motivated him to engage in sports. The influence of his under -17 coach Hilary Abeyratne, who taught the basic fundamentals in rugby followed by his first coach Percy Madugalle also a former Trinitian, whom he rates as his mentor in Rugby, had played a pivotal role in grooming him as a top Rugby player.  

He launched his illustrious rugby career by playing for Trinity College in 1962 under Noel Brohier as skipper where Royal won the first leg of the ‘Bradby Shield’ at Longden Place 5-0 while Trinity went on to win the second leg 9-0 at Bogambara. In 1963, he played under Ananda Piyasena where the first leg in Kandy ended in a six-all draw while winning the second leg 5-3.  

 In 1964, Mohan led the Trinity side and some of the players in his team were Gotabaya Dissanayake, B.D.G. Piyasena, J.T. Labrooy, M.T.M. Zarook, George Carson, C.S. Jayasinghe, N.V. Perera, Sam Canagasabai, Ifthikar Hamid, Gavin Rodie, Dathusena Senanayake.  

That year Royal was led by Keith. Paul and the team were made of K.S.D.S. Vidanage, Brian. Lieversz, I.R. Thuriratnam, D.W. Goonawardene, Nizam. Jaimon, R.T. de Soysa, S. Jayadeva, A.L. Dissanayake, L.K.L. Hettiarachchi, L.R. Perera, L. de Chickera, G. Tillekarathne, S.N.L. Wadugodapitiya, U.P. Wickramasinghe. There was hardly a game in which he  

did not score. Even his rival captain in the Bradby of 1964, Keith Paul told his coach, Mahesh Rodrigo, “We will win, but Mohan Sahayam will score.” In that year, the first leg was played at Longden Place which Royal won 3-0 with the second leg was played at Nittawela which also Royal won 14-6 to clinch the Bradby Shield.  

Mohan won his rugby colours in 1962 along with R.G. Geddes, L. Karunatilake, A.R.P. Kehelpanala, B.D.A. Piyasena and the ‘Lion’ was awarded to Mohan in 1963.  

He played cricket in 1963, under the captaincy of Sunil Perera. That year, he played three games including the “big match” where he scored 21 and 3 respectively. Then in 1964, he played a full season under M.T.M. Zarook and his teammates were S. Galgama, Eardley Wadugodapitiya, Harindra Dunuwille, Anil Ratwatte, Hemendra Ranaweera, David Ondatjie, Brian Munaweera, Glen Vanlangenberg, I.R. Hamid, A.H. Jayawaradene, T. Disanayake, G. Rodie.  

He was a hard-hitting left hand batsman and in 1964 when Trinity were struggling at 99 for 6 against St. Josephs’ at Asgiriya, he made a swashbuckling 51 runs that enabled them to recover as Trinity went on to post 190 runs. The Josephians in reply were skittled out for 146 and  

Trinity in their second essay declared at 169 for 7 setting a target of 213 runs. Mohan used his long handle to score 33 and the Josephians were bundled out for 161 runs giving Trinity a 52 run win. At the end of the season, he was awarded his cricketing colours along with R.B.J. Munaweera, D.C. Ondatje, Hemendra Ranaweera, Anil Ratwatte and Glen Vanlangenberg.  

In athletics Mohan was in the 400 metres relay team with Gotabaya Dissanayake, M. S. Jayasinghe and Sarath Weerasinghe. He won the ‘A..H.R. Joseph’ Challenge Cup for all round excellence in sports in 1964 and in the same year he was appointed as school Prefect  

Soon after school he joined CR and FC where he played for a long spell leading them in 1969 while Kandy Sports Club was led by Denzil Kobbekaduwa, entered the cup final  hoping to shatter the14 year hoodoo  against CR. He also played for Colombo Clubs and Sri Lanka as a top fly half, which was his favourite position. In the final when the final whistle was blown by Referee Cmdr. Darley Ingelton the scoreboard read 12-6 in favour of the Longden Place Club.  

The 1969 Clifford Cup winning CR side comprised Hadji Omar, ‘Bumpy’ Jayasekara, Dushantha Samarasekera, Junie Cader, Kamal Ratnapala, Indrajith Coomaraswamy, Ajit Abeyratne, Tony de Sylva, Tony Srimanne and Mohan Sahayam (Capt), Ronnie Schokman, Hasitha Kannangara, Reggie Bartholomeusz, Hamzi Hameed, Iqbal Jumar.  

The Kandy Sports Club team was Y.C. Chang, Mohan Balasuriya, G. Stevens, Rohan Abeysundara, Dr. D. Makuloluwa, Jadi Dissanayake, Deeplal de Zoysa, Gamini Udugama, Denzil Kobbekaduwa (Capt) and Jayantissa Ratwatte, Lakshman Samarawijaya, Chang Faa Ching, George Jayasena, Fredrick Prins, Shafie Jainudeen.  

He received the ‘Clifford Cup’ from then president of the union Dr. K.B. Sangakkara. Mohan was a fine thinker of the game and made rugby a favourite sport. When he played for Sri Lanka in 1965 his colleagues were Sari de Sylva, Tony Sirimanne, Eric Roles, John Burrows, Chris Bean. Since Sri Lanka had limited invitations for foreign tournaments, he played for Sri Lanka in the All India Tournament, several times and against the visiting England teams with distinction before he injured his collarbone at practices with CR in the 1970 season having played under Hadji Omar which ruined his career forcing him to retire as a player. and took upto refereeing  He became a leading A division referee officiating  even the cup final between Havelocks and Navy in 1976 He served as the secretary of the Referees Society under Malcolm Wright before he left for Australia to settle down. At present he is living in Brisbane and his wife is Penny while daughter Tishara is a retail industry holder.