Former Royal skipper and Sri Lanka scrum half Subramaniam Sujanthakumar will be the chief guest at the second leg of the 73rd Bradby Shield Encounter at the Royal Sports Complex on June 3 (Saturday).
Sujanthakumar played for Royal from 1978 to 1980 captaining the school in his final year. He turned out for Sri Lanka Combined Schools against Loughborough Schools, England in 1978 and also played for Colombo North Schools led by Raba Gunasekara in 1979 which beat the Colombo South Schools by 35-12 in the Gratiaen Cup final.
Under his leadership in 1980 Royal with only three coloursman had an excellent season winning nine out of 10 matches – beating Ananda (10-0), Dharmaraja (41-0), Wesley (54-0), Vidyartha (8-0), St. Peter’s (10-0), St. Joseph’s (11-6), S. Thomas (10-7) and Trinity (7-3 and 16-6) with a solitary defeat at the hands of Isipathana (7-14).
In the first leg of the Bradby Shield Royal helped by a try by Sriyan Cooray and a penalty by P.G. Nimalasiri won 7-3 and in the return match at Nittawala the Royalists led 6-3 at half time through two penalties fired across by P.G. Nimalasiri. In the second half Royal crossed the Trinity goal line twice through flanker Seevali Jayasinghe and centre Sumith Fonseka with Nimalasiri’s spectacular conversion of Fonseka’s try by the corner flag giving Royal a 16-6 win and they retained the Bradby Shield for the third successive year. The champion Royal team comprised Leon Fonseka, Hemal Jayawardena, P.G. Nimalasiri, Kapila Peiris, S. Sridharan, Shanaka Gunaratne, Seevali Jayasinghe, Irshard Rahiman, Subramaniam Sujanthakumar (Captain) and Amaranath Kandiah, Sriyan Cooray, Sumith Fonseka, Hiran Muttiah, Sujeewa Cooray and Johan Muller.
Sujanthakumar went onto play for CH and FC from 1980 to 1985 captaining in 1983 in which year the Maitland Crescent Club emerged unbeaten Clifford Cup League Champions.
He donned the Sri Lanka Jersey at the Hong Kong Sevens in 1982 and at the 1984 Rugby Asiad in Fukuoka City, Japan.
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