The death occurred on Saturday of Rohitha Mendis, former St Anthony’s rugby player and coach who died suddenly at the young age of 37.
Mendis has been suffering from a long time kidney illness and according to his friends he had been hiding the sickness and did not take proper treatment. He was cremated at Mahiyawa General cemetery on Sunday with a limited crowd in attendance due to the current curfew.
A product of St Anthony’s College Katugastota where he excelled in rugby Mendis was an impressive player with surprising speed and with a knack of scoring tries. He was in outstanding form for the Antonians in 2001, the year in which the Antonians were unbeaten and the league number one team.
Mendis played little bit of B division club rugby after school, and was keen in coaching and gave a big hand for junior rugby. He was well backed by the famous coach Ronnie Ibrahim, who spotted him at the Gettembe grounds coaching Sarasavi Uyana College juniors and invited him to start with the Kingwood College juniors whom he helped win the Milo U16 All Island championship in 2010 for the first time. From here he crossed over to Katugastota in 2016 to coach his school where he learnt the game, and helped them to do well and win their first junior title. In 2019 he was the Antonians’ sevens coach and helped his school become the Plate runner-up. In the final they went down to Royal College. He was one time the Antonian forwards coach.
Mendis also handled the Peradeniya University rugby side for many years, starting from 2011. Under his coaching they were the 2011, 2012 and 2017 champions and took second place in the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018. Even at the time of his death he was in charge of the University rugby side coaching them to win the inter University championship. He also coached Maskeliya Plantation and Malwatte Valley Plantation teams and guided the Maskeliya Plantation side to win the inter plantation sevens in 2019.
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