Jeremy Perera the swimmer turned ruggerite-by Althaf Nawaz

Donald Jeremy Perera

Source:Dailynews

Donald Jeremy Perera was a prominent figure in Sri Lankan sporting circles being an all-round sportsman produced by Royal College, Colombo. Even though he reached the pinnacle in rugby, he was also a top athlete and a swimmer who had many credentials at his ‘Alma Mater’ as a schoolboy.

Jeremy who is in his seventies was the son of Donald Perera, a banker by profession who worked at Bank of Ceylon and Chartered Bank and Rene Perera his mother was a teacher attached to Methodist College, Colombo. He has two more members in his family with his sister Janine Ponnudurai being a Veterinary Surgeon while his brother Johann Perera is a school teacher.

He grabbed his College colours in Rugby, Swimming and Athletics and embarked on his distinguished sports career engaging in swimming for Royal at the age of 14 in the two-mile sea swim and later represented the college in the Public School Swimming Championship for several years. He finally gave up swimming to focus on Rugby, which needed lot of hard work maintaining the physic and fitness levels. He was also a member of the middle distance and long distance teams of Royal in athletics, which was an added advantage in boosting his career. He represented the College in the Group Meets and Public Schools Athletic meet in 1966 and 1967, which became a morale booster for him to get into rugby.

He launched his rugby career as a flanker with the under 15 team and progressed to the under 17 side. He had a herculean task of barging into the first XV side unlike a couple of his buddies like Brian Lieversz, Mousey Thurairatnam as Keith Paul and Hettiaratchi were in the third row of the first XV, who were great regular players, who dominated those positions as a result he had to wait until they left college. Finally, he got an opportunity to represent the College first XV team under Upendra Wickremasinghe and went on to grab the college colours in 1966. In his second year he played under his good buddy Brian Lieversz.

He left college at the end of 1967 and played a couple of games for the CR ‘Bees’ before starting a career in the Tea Planting industry with Deltota Group in Galaha. His profession sidelined him from getting into the major rugby playing clubs.

He got an opportunity to make his debut playing for Kandy Sports Club in 1969 under Y.C. Chang’s captaincy. After three years, he yet again moved to Dickoya in 1972 and played there for a season. Finally he returned to Kandy Sports Club where he led them in 1974. While being in the plantation industry he also represented the Up country with distinction for a couple of years. George Jayasena, Chang Faa Ching Izwan Omar, Gavin Stevens, Lanil Tennakoon, Nimal Malagamuwa, H. M. Gunaratne Banda and Sunil Munasinghe were some of his team mates at Kandy Sports Club.

He played for the Sri Lanka Presidents XV against Bosuns, Blackheath and Paris Universities teams from 1969 to 1972 during when he was at his peak. He was very unfortunate to sustain severe concussion playing against Paris University and was out of the game, after only competing for just twenty minutes of playing time. He played for the Sri Lanka Team in 1972 at the Rugby Asiad under the leadership of Yu Cey Chang in Hong Kong. Those who played with him for Sri Lanka were Yu Cey Chang Dr Maiya Gunasekera Desmond Harridge Hadji Omar Gamini Udugama Reggie Bartholomeusz Ronnie Schokman Nizam Hajireen, Daya Jayasundera and Hafi Abdeen.

At school Brian Lieversz, late Nizam Jaimon, C.R. Bulla de Silva, Ramlal Goonewardene, C.T. de Silva, R.G.M. and R.S.I. de Silva, Lal de Silva, Indra Jayawardena, and Punitha Kumar played with him for Royal in 1967 The second ‘Bradby’ game he had to captain as both skipper Brian Lieversz and Nizam Jaimon were injured and soon after the kick off Bulla de Silva was carried off due to an injury where they really struggled with a depleted side and lost to Trinity.

In 1975 he migrated to Perth Australia. In 1976, and started studying for a Bachelor’s Degree part time at Western Australian. Institute of Technology in Perth which he completed 1981. He then moved to Melbourne in 1984 and soon after along with a fellow Sri Lankan took on the Management of Haycarb Australia.

He finally retired in 2017 and moved with his family to North Queensland. He is married to a Thai lady with two step sons and running a very successful Thai Restaurant in North Queensland.