We need to support the legend Shan-Nazeem Mohamed Vice President of the Sri Lanka Rugby

By Shamzeer Jaleel

Former Peterite, CH & FC and national sevens and fifteens sensation Chandrishan Perera will be honored and supported through a game of rugby on April 9 at Havelock Park under lights between the Colombo Origins and Kandy Origins.

This event will be used as a yard stick to select the national rugby pool of 33 players who will tour to Malaysia for a 2 test series commencing on May 1 and later on will tour Taipei for the Asia Rugby Championship XV a side encounter between Taipei, Philippines, Singapore and Sri Lanka. The winner of this event will get n automatic qualification for ARC Top 3 in Asia presently fought out between the three top Asian sides such as Hong Kong, South Korea and Malaysia.

Speaking Sri Lanka Rugby, Vice President, Nazeem Mohamed said " The idea to honor and support Chandrishan Perera initially came from Rohan Gunaratne the current Executive Director of SLR and National rugby chairman of Selector, Rohan Abeykoon. Shan had done enough for the rugby in the country as a player, administrator and a commentator for the last 2 decades. Already some top Corporates have come forward to support this event. A few of them are Dialog, Expolanka, MAS and SAGT. Minister of Sports, Harin Fernando who himself a rugby player for Joes will be the chief guest at this event too supported in a big way. Nazeem continued and said "We are thankful to Havies for providing the ground and to play under lights. We will not charge any gate fee but any one can contribute towards this worthy cause of one of the legends of Sri Lankan Rugby.

A total of 25 players from each team are hard at training. The final 33 touring squad will come under the watchful eyes of New Zealander, Matt Lee with Fazil Marija and Viraj Prasanna assisting him on tour.

Photo credit Chamila Karunarathne