Saranath Hettiarachchi the weightlifter turned ruggerite-by Althaf Nawaz

Saranath Hettiarachchi

Prop’ forwards are usually the largest and heaviest players in a team. In attack, their size and strength means that they are primarily used for running directly into the opponents defence, as a kind of battering ram to simply gain metres. Saranath Nuwan Hettiarachchi was a player who with his height and hefty build locked horns to play a key role occupying the prop forward position in all the teams he played starting from school, club and national team.

Saranath was born in 1981 in Kandy city and Nimal Hettiarachchi was his father a businessman while Kumari Marambe his mother was a housewife. He had two siblings with Ruwan his younger brother who represented the same school later locked horns for CR and FC and another brother Dinesh lives in Italy. He enrolled himself as a primary school kid at Dharmaraja College, Kandy in 1986 and went on to complete his higher studies by 2000. It is noteworthy that Dharmaraja College is another prominent school located in the hill capital which played a phenomenal role in the field of education and sports producing several personalities, who brought honour and fame to their ‘Alma Mater’ and the country.

Well known as Saranath in the sporting arena, he was very particular in maintaining a brawny frame from his small days. He launched his rugby career from the under-13 and went on to play in the 15 age group under the watchful eyes of coach Janak Samarasinghe, who was instrumental in teaching him the basics of the oval shaped ball. His under-17 coach was C.S. Ekanayake while the under-19 head coach was former Rajan and National player Hemantha Yatawara with G. B. Ekanayake as the fitness coach. His involvement in rugby was an interesting one. He was highly captivated by weightlifting and played rugby as a secondary sport. Since he was performing exceptionally well in weightlifting, his coach pressurized him to focus purely on weightlifting rather than concentrating on other disciplines to give his best to the sport, But he decided to concentrate on rugby leaving out weightlifting, which was the stepping stone to his illustrious rugby career. He also took part in the under-13 cricket team while being a member of the weightlifting team. While being engaged in weightlifting he represented the college team in the 96kg weight class. In1996, he won the first place whilst establishing a National record at the Junior National Tournament held in Negombo in the same weight class. Due to his quality performance in sports in 1997, he won school colours for weight lifting and also spared his free time in school to take part in soccer and athletics..

He started his rugby career with the under-13 age category and continued all the way up to play with the first XV team after representing the school teams in 1996 (under-15) and in 1997(under-17). He played a dual role representing the first XV team drafting in as number eight and at times as a prop forward in the1998/ 1999/ 2000 seasons. In 2000, he was awarded the “Dagoba” at the school Colours Nite for being the first ever rugby player in Dharmaraja history to represent the under-19 Sri Lanka National team. In the same year, he was appointed as games captain of Central Province and represented the winning Central Province team in the provincial league organized by SLRFU.

In1999 he, represented the Junior Asian Rugby team in Taiwan under two great personalities with S.W. Chang as Manager and Ananda Kathuriarachchi as head coach who guided them to win the Plate Championship in that tournament for the first time in history. In 2000, halfway through the school season he was selected by Kandy SC to play for them as a second row forward under the captaincy of Indrajith Bandaranayake. He then donned the Kandy jersey from 2000 to 2008 representing Kandy SC as prop forward under the captaincy of Indrajith Bandaranayake, Sajith Mallikarachchi, Pradeep Basnayake, Sanjeewa Jayasinghe, Nalaka Weerakody, Radhika Hettiarachchi and Jeewa Galgamuwa.

During his peak playing for Kandy in 2001, he was called to join the Sri Lanka National Rugby team as a prop forward under late George Simpkin’s tenure as the national coach and had a memorable career till 2007, playing in several tournaments for Sri Lanka under different captains including Viraj Prasantha, Haris Omar, Pradeep Basnayake, Sajith Mallikarachchi, Indrajith Bandaranayake while the coaches were Tony Amit, Tavita Tulagaesi (Laga), C. P. Abeygunawardena and late George Simpkin. In 2008, he won National colours for his contribution to Sri Lankan Rugby. In the same year he opted to hang up his boots with the intention of migrating to Australia. He is living in Melbourne, Australia since 2008 and working at Woolworths LTD as a manager building up and developing his career in Education. He obtained a Sports and Nutrition Degree at Melbourne University while following a Rugby Union and League coaching course at Rugby

Australia. His wife is Mekala Dasanayake and has one child Helith aged nine years.