Rural lad Buddhika shone as a flanker for Sri Lanka-by Althaf Nawaz

Buddhika Thalagampola

Flanker. Buddhika Thalagampola started his education from an under privileged school from Kegalle District before moving to a Colombo school with a scholarship to become the cynosure of all eyes in the game of rugby f ootball.

Buddhika was born in 1983 in Ruwanwella and his father is Dawson Thalagampola a planter at Janawasama and mother late Seelawathi was a housewife. He has one brother Kamal. He first attended Magammana Junior school in1989 and went to study there until 1996. In 1996, he moved to Ruwanwella Central

College and continued his education till 1999. With the introduction of rugby in their district, his school too participated and he was included in the inaugural under-15 team in 1997, where one Priyantha was their coach who taught them the laws of the game. They used to play rugby at the Inter Provincial tournament where former Pathanian Shamly Nawaz and their junior coach Janaka Abeysinghe who currently resides in Scotland spotted Buddhika and two other extraordinary performers. Later all three of them were offered

scholarships at Isipathana College, Colombo to continue their studies while playing rugby for them. He enrolled at Isipathana in 1999, while he was preparing for the G.C.E. Ordinary Level examination and went on to study until 2002. One of the other persons to gain a scholarship was former National player and 2008 CR skipper Anuradha Dharmathilaka.

At the time when he donned the Isipathana rugby jersey, it was S.W. Chang who was coaching the first XV team. Until then Buddhika was playing as a fly half and Chang requested him to change his position to second row forward, which enabled him to convert to become a profound player.

This wise move also transformed him to one of the key players of the game in that era. Nevertheless, he locked horns for Isipathana first XV team from 2000 to 2002. He was a regular member of the team that clinched the Knock-Out championship in 2001 under the captaincy of Ranga Perera, jointly coached by Champika Nishantha and Bimal Perera.

In his second year in 2002, under the captaincy of Anuranga Walpola they were the League Runner up, and went on to win the all Island sevens championship, later clinching the Prime

Ministers Trophy coached by Sanath Martis.

He was included in the Sri Lankan team that toured Japan in 2001 for the Junior Rugby Asiad captained by Anuranga Walpola under the watchful eyes of Asanga Seneviratne and Priyantha Gunarathne’s coaching, where they became plate runner-up. After his school career, he opted to continue playing rugby and enrolled with CR and FC in 2003 under the captaincy of Shamly Nawaz. That team was coached by Tony Amit who was also instrumental in changing his playing position from second row to flanker which gave him the opportunity to play more freely and showcase his defensive ability against some top players including foreign players which definitely paved the way to being selected to the National team. In 2003, he was initially selected to the National XV’s team as a . forward. He was a regular member of the starting lineup of the National XV team in 2003/4 seasons under the

captaincy of Pradeep Basnayake. He made his debut with the National team at the World Cup Qualifiers Series in 2003 followed by Rugby Asiad 2004 in Hong Kong. While competing there, he continued to play for his club CR in 2004 under the captaincy of Pavithra Fernando, which he rates as an unforgettable year as a player.

He went on to win the award for Best Forward of the Tournament at the Caltex League that year. Later that year, he made his one and only national sevens appearance at the Singer Sri

Lankan sevens subsequently that tournament was used as sevens World Cup Qualifier under the captaincy of Radhika Hettiarachchi, coached by George Simpkin where they ended up as Plate Champions. He was last selected in the national sevens squad in 2007 for Hong Kong sevens.

At the end of 2004 rugby season, he was invited by Kandy SC to join them. He played for them from 2005 to 2012. They as a team won each and every tournament they played except one league title. While he was in KSC, his career was threatened by several injuries, which kept him out of the game frequently.

He had to go through an ACL reconstruction of both of his knees, which was a major blow followed by a fracture to his wrist, which limited his contribution towards the team. According to him the most

unforgettable moment at KSC was being appointed as the Captain of 2011 season. However, his hopes were short lived after four games as he injured his left knee resulting in him undergoing surgery . From 2004 to 2018, he was working at a leading private bank and in 2013, he was promoted as a Branch Manager, where he decided to hang up his boots.

He would like to extend his sincere gratitude to KSC and its management who made huge contributions for him to come up in his personal life in many ways. Malik Samarawickrama the person who was behind the success of the club and each and every player of the team.

In 2018, he resigned from the bank to start his career as a rugby coach. Started with coaching the under-16 Isipathana team which became joint league champions with Royal College and Plate Champions in the All Island 10’s tournament in 2018. Then in 2019, he joined Trinity as the first XV forwards coach was privileged to

work with former national high performance director Imthi Marikkar and former All black Rodney Soialo during that season.

In 2020, he returned to Isipathana as first XV forwards coach and worked with former national coach Ronny Ibrahim and his school mate and national player Riza Mubarak. At the

end of 2021, he started working as KSC under-24 forwards coach under guidance of his former team mate and KSC head coach Fazil Marija until matters came to a standstill due to outbreak of Covid-19. However, he will continue to be part of the KSC coaching staff in next season.

He is a World Rugby XV Level-2 accredited coach and took part in a two weeks long coach development programme at Rugby Academy in Ireland in 2018. Currently reading for a diploma in exercise and sports science in Peradeniya University. .

His wife is Shanthi Marian a banker working in Kandy who stood as the pillar of strength in his ups and downs and Ameli, Rylee and Kylee are his children.