St. Anthony’s College is a leading school located in the hill capital Kandy, which has contributed immensely in the field of Education and Sports producing several personnel who made their ‘Alma Mater’ proud.
In the field of sports especially in the game of rugby they have unearthed many highly skilled players, who have given fine displays bringing honour and fame to their school.
Pradeep Liyanage was one of them who had the distinction of becoming a prolific player in the game of rugby representing the country both locally and internationally.
Pradeep Liyanage also known as ‘Laiya’ in the sporting circles was born in 1983 in Kandy. His father is Silva working overseas while mother Subadra is a housewife. He has one brother Niresh who also attended his school. While they were living in the outskirts of Kandy, Pradeep got an opportunity to enrol at St. Anthony’s College, Kandy in junior school in1995 and continued his higher studies in 2002, where he concluded his school career.
From his younger days, he had a liking for sports and launched his sporting career playing cricket and engaging in athletics at College in the under-13 age category. His main events there were 100 and 200 metre races in, which he notched up the second and first places respectively at the All Island Championship.
In athletics, he went on to win the same events in Kandy District Athletic Championship in the under-13,15 and 17 age groups which earned him the ‘Best Athlete’ at college under the coaching of Keerthi.
His participation in rugby was due to his under-13 rugby coach Nihal Ananda, who monitored and spotted Pradeep’s capabilities in athletics mainly the speed he had in his individual events. He finally participated in handling the rugby ball from junior rugby and went on to play in all age groups for his school teams. While he was playing in the under-15 team, he occupied the fly halves berth while in the under-17 team played in as a wing three quarter.
At the age of 17 years, he was included in the first XV team where he competed for four years. He was a member of their champion side which won the ‘Schools Rugby Crown’ as an unbeaten team in 2001 under Tikiri Dissanayake’s captaincy coached by Priyantha Guneratne, .
Even though he was playing in as a Wing three quarter later had to shift his position to Centre three quarter, after one of their key players who occupied that place was injured, and from there he continued to lock horns
in this position until he hung up his boots. During their unbeaten season they defeated some of the top schools in the fray like Isipathana, S.Thomas and St.Peters few to be named. Playing as second centre, he went on to plant 41 tries in that whole season.
In the final match of the season against Isipathana they pulled off a narrow 10-8 win and it was his solitary try with two penalties which guided them to victory. He was later awarded the Double Eagle,.
In 2002, his former school mate Priyantha Ekanayake, invited him to join Kandy Sports Club and continued playing until 2013, later captaining them in 2009. He surged ahead to annex the ‘Best Players’ award three times and the ‘Best Three Quarter’ award on six occasions.
In the meantime playing for Kandy as a school boy, he got his National call in 2002. His tenure with the National team spanned until 2013.
He made his debut in 2002 with the Sri Lanka XV side tour of Hong Kong followed by the Dubai Sevens tournament the same year.
He was appointed the Sri Lanka captain in 2010 and led them in several International Tournaments in both sevens and XV-a-side format of the game.
He played his first Rugby Asiad under Pradeep Basnayake’s captaincy along with some of the best players in the game in that era like Nalaka Weerakkody, Sajith Mallikarachchi, Fazil Marija, Amjad Buksh, Nilfer Ibrahim, Radhika Hettarachchi and Indrajith Bandaranaike In his rugby career, he was coached by Priyantha Gunaratne, Nihal Ananda, Mohamed Faizal, Tavitha Thulagesi (Laga), late George Simpkin and Yohan Taylor.
At present he is coaching his school and his wife is Ruwindika Dunuwille and has three children namely Shakya (6), Nathaya (4) and Yeheli (3) years old.
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