Rugby Star Terrence was also a fine coach-by Althaf Nawaz

Henry Terrence

Wesley College, Colombo is a leading Christian School which has played a pivotal role in sports and studies. Rugby has a prominent place in their sports calendar producing several champion sides which have put up some belligerent performances. Some of their players’ opted to continue their rugby career and played at club level later representing the country. Henry Terrence was another player who entered that elite rugby players list at school with a successful career.

Henry was born in 1986 in Colombo and his father is Peter Terrence a businessman by profession while mother Inul is a housewife. He has two siblings Diana and Enoch. Henry was enrolled at Wesley College in 1993 as a primary school student and completed his academic career in 2005.

He was a strongly built young man over six feet in height and weighing 115 kilos at the time of representing the senior team. He never intended to play rugby but engaged in football for a short period. It was his Maths teacher late N J. Mudannayake who was also their rugby master in charge who spotted him and encouraged him to join the junior rugby team in 1999. He then played in the school under-13 team as a Prop Forward and won the all Island trophy for the first time for the college.

He continued to play in the under-15,17 and the first XV team until 2005 occupying the same position. It was Dishantha Priyadharshana, his coach who took care of him from the day he touched the oval shaped ball in 1999 until he ended his school career in 2005. He maintained a regular place in the first XV team from 2003 to 2005 ending up as the vice-captain in the 2005 season. He got an opportunity of playing for CR and FC in 2005 under head coach Grant Dwyer which he rates as a great experience to play with some big names in the game during that time like Pavithra Fernando, Asanga Rodrigo, Savantha de Saram few to be named.

That team eventually went on to win the ‘Caltex Knockout Tournament’in 2006 by beating Havelocks 37-5 in the final. In his first year at CR, he was rewarded for being ‘Most Promising Newcomer’. He surged ahead to don the Red jersey from 2006 to 2011, where he was named as vice-captain in 2011.

In 2012, he decided to swap clubs and moved to Havelocks.

Asanga Seneviratne gave him the opportunity to captain the team which won the League tournament after 31 years for the Park Club, where he scrummed down for them for three seasons.

He then moved from Havelocks to play a single season each with Navy and Police Sports Club. One of his most memorable matches in his Club Rugby career was in the 2014/15 season beating the mighty Kandy SC in Nittawela, after playing more than 15 matches previously. From 2016, he decided to keep away from the game due to his coaching and family commitments. But in 2019, he intended to make a comeback to play rugby again and played a season with CH and FC.

He had a regular place in the Sri Lanka team as a Prop Forward from 2007 to 2016, where he represented them in all tournaments. During his National career the most memorable moment was scoring his first try against Chinese Taipei in 2009 and becoming the Asian Five Nations champions in 2010 under Pradeep Liyanage’s captaincy. Later they went on to win two more championships under Yoshitha Rajapaksa and Fazil Marija’s captaincy in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

While he was playing Club rugby at Park Club, after winning the League in 2012, he got the opportunity to coach his ‘Alma Mater’ in 2013 and guided them to win the schools knockout tournament for the first time in the college history under the leadership of Rahul de Silva by beating Trinity College by 35-21 in the final.

Same year, he was also entrusted to coach the Sri Lanka under-20 team with Colin Dinesh and won the tournament held in Chinese Taipei. He had the rare honour of coaching the under-20 National squad while playing for the Sri Lanka National rugby team.

His tenure as coach with Wesley was for three years and later moved to coach Isipathana in 2016 with Nilfer Ibrahim for two years.

They became double champs and coached the under-20 National team with Nilfer Ibrahim in the same year. In the 2019/20 season, he was chosen to coach the Army team and currently is the head coach of Science College. He is a World Rugby level-three qualified coach and holds a level two certificate in strength and conditioning.His wife is Sandra and has one child Zack.