Nimal Lewke top class sportsman, coach and administrator-by Hafiz Marikar

Nimal-Lewke

Kandy’s rugby lovers still talk about Kandy born Nimal Lewke’s contribution for sports, which should be weighed in gold. He was a sportsman who will be long remembered for his contribution to rugby especially Kandy Sports Club. He never played rugby for the school, as at that time there was no rugby at his school.

He started his rugby at Kandy Sports club and later took to coaching. It was he who guided the club to win the first Triple Crown in 1995,. He was an outstanding sportsman, coach, administrator and top class referee with a vision to produce results besides being a crack police commando with the Special Task Force (STF) where he served as Commandant and Deputy Inspector General. He excelled in boxing cricket and rugby and ended up as the president of Sri Lanka Rugby.

Nimal Lewke started his sporting career while at St. Sylvester’s College in Kandy as a boxer and learnt the finer points from that great coach Derick Raymond before going on to represent Sri Lanka at the King’s Cup Boxing championship in Bangkok, Thailand and the TATA sports festival in India in 1972. As a schoolboy he won the Best Boxer’s trophy at the Intermediate Championships in 1970.

His rugby career began at Kandy Sports Club under the guidance of Maurice Perera. Later he joined the Police as a sub-inspector and retired as a senior DIG having represented the law enforcement authority as scrum half and flanker. He was a member of four police teams that won the Clifford Cup in 1972 under Anton Benedict, 1973 under Nizam Hajireen, 1979 under Charles Wijewardena and in 1980 under his leadership

He also wielded the willow for Police in the Sara Trophy cricket tournament In addition to his prowess in boxing, rugby and cricket Lewke was also a member of the champion police pistol shooting team. His achievements in the field of rugby coaching have been unparalleled. He coached St. Peter’s College and S. Thomas’ College; But Lewke’s coaching turned truly professional when in 1995 he enrolled at Kandy SC which became Triple champs for the first time in history. In the following two years 1996 and ’97 Kandy SC won the Triple crown creating a record where a coach won the triple crown on three consecutive occasions.

As an administrator at Sri Lanka Rugby, Lewke played a leading role to entice foreign teams to visit the country at a time when security issues were a major concern during the civil war and one of the events hosted was the Rugby Asiad in November 2007 for which he received accolades from then President Mahinda Rajapaksa .Lewke also served as president of the Asian Rugby Football Union and was also the president of the Sri Lanka Rugby Referees Society in 2003/04. To cap it all Lewke received the “Kreeda Bushana” or Lifetime Award at the Presidential Sports Awards this year for his excellent contribution to Sri Lanka sports as a sportsman, administrator, referee and coach and also was president of Sri Lanka Rugby and Referees Society.

Like father, like son. Royal College rugby coach Dushanth Lewke proved that he has the potential to reach the top as a good coach like his father by guiding Royal to the A Division League title for three successive years Father and son have produced unbeaten rugby teams which is a unique achievement.