Baratha Hegoda the Rugby Legend-Althaf Nawaz

Source:Dailynews

Rugby Football has become one of the top sports in the country with more and more academies and schools enrolling young kids to take up the game to transform them into highly skilled players. A man who contributed three decades of his life to the game, which apparently is an unbroken record in the Lankan Rugby history was none other than Baratha Hegoda, well known in the rugby circles as ‘Bari’, is a legend who will be remembered for a long time both as a player and as a gentleman,

Bharatha Hegoda a rock solid third row player later matured as a utility player, who could fit into any position in the Pack. Bari’s three-decade career as a forward for Sri Lanka and CH & FC was due to his sheer determination, dedication and perseverance.

He started his school rugby career at Greenlands College in the year 1960 as a junior student. He then shifted to Isipathana College at the young age of 16 years, where he played in the second XV team as a prop forward. Continuing further as a player in 1970,1971 and 1972 he was selected to represent the first XV senior team.

Due to an unfortunate incident Isipathana College was barred from participating in the school’s rugby season in 1972. As a result, he was deprived of representing the College first XV team. Subsequently S.K.Gunawardena, brother of LSSP MP for Kalutara Cholmondeley

Gunawardena invited most of the Isipathana players, to join his school. They ultimately accepted the invitation by Gunawardena and joined Dehiwela Central school rugby team, which is now renamed as S.de S Jayasinghe Maha Vidyalaya. Bari along with Sarath Perera, Preethi Mahawela, Kamal Jayawardena, Ananda Perera, Ranjith Perera crossed over in 1973, which enabled them to build up a strong rugby team.

Bari Represented Dehiwela Central in the school’s rugby season from 1973 to 1974. He then embarked on his club rugby career with CH & FC in 1975, to play in the Inter Club under-22 tournaments as a third row player. One year later, monitoring his skills, he was selected to represent the CH & FC senior team under Rodney Patternot’s captaincy and under the watchful eyes of great Archibald Perera as coach.

According to him it was Archibald Perera who moulded him to play in the key number-8 position, where he continued playing for CH in the 1977 season.

Sri Lanka Navy extended him an invitation in 1978 to don their jersey to represent them in the inter club rugby competition, where they defeated his former club CH in 1979. He rejoined CH rugby on the Invitation of his close friends and former champion captains late N.H.Karunasena and Saman Jayasinghe in 1980 and 1981 seasons. Under N.H Karunasena CH won the league title after 20 years having performed a similar feat way back in 1962.

He went on to lead CH under Y.C. Chang as coach in1982. Due to an injury occurred in a match against CR & FC in 1983, he was out of action but returned after one year in 1984 to continue playing for CH as a member of their ‘A’ division rugby side until 1995.

By reaching 50 years of age in 1996, he quit playing competitive ‘A’ division rugby and joined the ‘B’ division team to enjoy playing until 2005, where he entered the record books becoming one and only player to play over three decades of rugby.

While being a club player Bari went to represent the national team in both 7’s and 15’s formats. He holds the record of playing in six Rugby Asiads representing the country. His debut in Rugby Asiad was in 1978 as a number-8 player held in Malaysia, led by Irwin Howie. Due to his

extraordinary playing skills he established a permanent place in both formats of the game, from where he started from 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986 and played his last Asiad in 1988.

In the sevens arena he was a regular member at Hong Kong sevens teams from 1979 under Lanil Tennekoon and again in 1980, 1981,1982, 1984 and in 1985.

In 1980 he represented the Colombo Wanderers teams on the tour of Taiwan.

He was instrumental in guiding CH to win several championships including the sevens championship in 1980, the league in 1982, the Clifford Cup in 1983, Singapore Sevens as runner up in 1984, and emerging as runner-up in the R. Premadasa Knockout tournament in 1984 followed by winning the same tournament in 1985, 1986 and 1988 respectively, under the watchful eyes of Y. C Chang as Coach and Kishin Butani and Ranjan Kanagasabai, who were pillars of strength by providing financial support to the players from 1980 to 1986.

He would like to extend his sincere gratitude to Kishin Butani under whom he says they celebrated the “Golden era of CH rugby” from 1988 to 1994, where Hassan Sinhawansa was Chairman of Rugby.

He is thankful to the coaches Archibald Perera, Y.C. Chang and Tony Amith and his team mates N.H, Karunasena, Saman Jayasinghe, Chandrishan Perera, Ranjan Kanagasabai, Rohan Abeykoon, Iqbal Hassan, Raheel Hashim, Roshan Perera, Sujantha Kumar, Rahim.Junaideen, Imran Salih, Anil Dassanayake, Ravi Wijenathan, Patrick Ranasinghe, Tiny Miskin, Brumoon Akbar, Apisai Nagata, S.Sritharan, Simon Hunter, Brian MaCauly, Jalasi Radrardo, and Basil Rodrigo.

After retiring from rugby he served as a National selector from 2010 to 2012. Bari took up coaching at St. Benedict’s College from 2013 to 2015 on the invitation of Rohan Gunaratne, where Bens got promoted to the schools ‘B’ Division.

Baratha Hegoda’s career in rugby was supported by his loving wife Sherine Hegoda and his son Bhanuka Hegoda who captained St. Josephs Rugby team in 2008.