Red Shirts see Danger ahead of New Season

One of the leading contenders of the new rugby season, CR and FC, will have to come to grips with a series of major injuries ahead of the start of the inter club League tournament set to be kicked off on November 14. 

The Red Shirts will face Sri Lions in their opening game, but the Club from Longden Place has been rocked by injuries to key players. 

Their captain from last season centre Gemunu Chethiya is set to miss the season having injured his knee while forward Senura Perera who was forced out during Sri Lanka versus Hong Kong Asian Sevens match is also doubtful. 

They have signed Pasindu Bandara who is one of the best up and coming players in the Sri Lanka rugby set up, but the nippy back division player has also had his knee injured during national duties.  “We have had a few injuries unfortunately over the last few weeks, we will have to shuffle our backline a bit this season and we are still to decide who is going to be our outside centre for the season,” CR and FC head coach Dushanth Lewke told the Daily Mirror in an interview. 

The Red Shirts’ preparations have also been hampered by the unavailability of the ground for a longer period of time.

“Our team’s physical preparations have been good. They squad has trained well under our trainer Vishwa, but skill-wise, we couldn’t practice much as the CR ground was closed. It was actually only opened this week, so rugbywise. we have to catch up a bit.

We played one practice match against Police last week and we have another match against Air Force this week. So, that’ll give us an opportunity to see how our players go and perform based on which we’d be able to finalise our preparation,” added the former Sri Lanka captain. 

The League winners of 2023-2024 - CR have signed some top players amid their injuries. Among the top signings are Ravindu Anjula, Charith Silva, Nirosh Perera and Romesh Fernando who have all joined the Longden Place club from their rivals CH and FC while they have also managed to sign Shane Hopwood who played for Police Sports Club last year. 

They have also signed some top young talents coming off school including Yoshitha Sithumina (Royal College), Dilruwan Perera (Science College), Januth Ratnayake (St. Peter’s College) and A. Ahmed (Isipathana College).  CR has appointed Number Eight Lasindu Karunathilake as their captain while his deputy would be former Wesley College fullback Murshid Doray. 

Karunathilake was one of the key players for CR during their title winning campaign but injuries meant he missed most of the last season. His presence will certainly boost the Red Shirts as he is known to be an inspirational captain having led Science College to the President Trophy victory against the odds in 2015. A former Royal College captain Lewke has also recognised Havelock Sports Club as their main rival this season.

  “Havelock Sports Club will be a big challenge this season. They have got a squad that has played together for about three years now and I believe that’s a huge factor in a competition like this, so I think they will be the biggest threat but having said that teams like Kandy, CH and even Army are good strong teams,” said Lewke.