Will 2010 Be Sanjeewa’s Swansong?

Sanjeewa Jayasinghe (green shirt)in action

By Hafiz Marikar

Sanjeeva Jayasinghe, the country’s best wing three; will he play or not play in the coming season? He should continue his superb performance this coming season too, although his main aim is to step down and give a break to a youngster. He is also cut up due the step motherly treatment he got from the rugby controllers.

He is a fast running, intelligent and gusty wing-three-quarter Sri Lanka has produced in the last decade.  Sanjeeva can be rated as the best rugby sevens player that this country has produced after the legendary Hisham  Abdeen.  He is a product of Science College. While at school he was keen on cricket, and he played for the school in the year 1998.  He was under the guidance of  Kamal Jayawardene and Chrysantha Perera at school.

Soon after leaving school he joined  Havelock Sports Club and gave his best for the club till the year 2001, that was the year he led the Park Club.  In 1998 while playing for Havelocks  Sports Club, he was picked to represent the country for the  Sevens tournament in Bangkok. Since then he has been an automatic choice for the Sri Lankan side. He has brought honour and fame to his school, club and the  country.  While at Havelocks, Ana Saranapala gave him the much needed guidance as a coach.

Havelock Sports Club was his first rugby playing club for which club he gave his best and also the club helped him to polish his rugby.  He got the opportunity of leading the Park Club in the year 2001.  In 2002 he crossed over to Kandy  Sports Club to better his rugby.  He first played for Kandy Sports Club under the captaincy of  Pradeep Basnayake and went on to captain the side and he did his part by leading the side to win the triple.

This 30 year old winger, is not only an attacking player but also a fierce tackler which makes him a complete player.  He is a player who could get into any sevens team in the world.

He has many memories in the field of rugger, while at Havelocks and  Kandy SC. It was at the Nittawela club that he blossomed into a top class winger.  Sanjeeva’s most memorable rugby display was in the Dubai Sevens in 2001, when he was bestowed with the captaincy  of the Sri Lanka side.  He stole the limelight by scoring seven tries in five outings which is perhaps the best performance by a Sri Lankan in international sevens.
In the very first outing against Scotland he followed a grubber kick from Nalaka Weerakody, and he picked up the ball and sped over 30 meters to fall over for a glorious try.  In the very next game, against the All Blacks which had some stars, he scored perhaps the best try of the tournament.  He collected a deep kick from a New Zealand defender in the Sri Lanka 25 and unleashed a breath-taking 80 meter run to score a spectacular try and received a standing ovation from the capacity crowd of   well over 15,000 fans at the Dubai Rugby Stadium.  Sanjeeva followed it up by scoring two scintillating tries against the strong Portugal in the final “A” group match.

Sanjeeva proved to be a source of inspiration to his team in the Bowl championship quarter finals against Kenya  by scoring two superb tries which saw the  Sri Lanka side coming up with a stupendous  performance to go down fighting  to Wales by 12 points to 24.  It brought his match bag of tries to seven – what a remarkable performance indeed.

Sanjeeva has a lot of rugby ahead of him, but he is disappointed on how he was treated by the administrators of the game and how the Sports Minister suspended him along with several Kandy SC players.  Some of the top players in the country failed to play for the country due to this mess up.

Sanjeeva is sure to do his club Kandy Sports Club and Sri Lanka proud with another brilliant display.

Sanjeewa speaking to this writer said, this season too Kandy SC will be blessed with some of the country’s top players and  there had been some school leavers who have joined. Kandy should come on top again this coming season.