Harris Omar gave KSC the push to make it a champion side

by Hafiz Marikar

Kandy Sports Club (KDC) first won the Rugby sevens title in 1999 under Haris Omar. Going back to the 1995 year, Harris Omar belonged to a bunch of superlative number eight forwards who have been churned out by Trinity, and they had done it regularly.

Noel Brohier, Ken Murray, Ajith Abeyratne, Jeffery Yu, Janaka Kiridena, Byron Fernando, Rajiv Aluwihare, whose excellent play in the schooldays had taken them far and made them champions even in club rugby, after the initial grounding at school.

Haris Omar - the Trinity star came up from the early age of 9 years and kept up the tempo for the others to follow.

The initial grounding got the best out of Harris and he was in the Sri Lanka rugby team even as he came out of school. He showed fine skill and vigour from the time he was in the under 15, 17 outfits,

and then came into the senior side in 1995. He stood out like a beacon in attack as well as in defence with his quick 'breaks' and

clever breakaways and he come alongside of Priyantha Ekanayake.

Harris played for Sri Lanka from 1996 to 2002 and his signature runs would be with the elbow trust out like a weapon of combat. The gem of skill craft was cut and polished by coach Quentin Israel who was undoubtedly one of the best schools coaches, who brought up Harris for Nimal Lewke of Kandy Sports Club to add that little bid more to fit into club rugby.

Harris showed capabilities early

From his early years, Harris was ear-marked as another Hisham Abdeen _ the 'Bionic' player who took the rugby scene by storm with his power in the 1980's.

The three players who would have taken the game by storm and added the luster into the team's play with the help of three others _ Hisham Abdeen, Michael Jayasekara and Chandrishan Perera. With so many youngsters available to play enterprising rugby, Sri Lanka's under 20 team and under 24 team went forward in their attacking style of play and the under 24 team in its Test against Hong Kong in 1998, did well to win and then National Team at the Asian Games in Korea did well in 2002.

While at school, Harris Omar played for Kandy Sports Club in 1995 and was one of the finest third-row forwards. Under his leadership, the club in 1999 (the year they were celebrating the 125th year) won the triple crown, winning the Inter-Club Sevens for the first time, League and the Clifford Cup knock-out tourney.

It was in that year that the SLRFU introduced the Inter-Club Sevens, and they won under Harris in the inaugural year. Under the guidance of former Sri Lanka skipper Priyantha Ekanayake, the club went on to dominate winning in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

* Father and son played for Trinity

Harris Omar, like his father Iswan Omar, played for Trinity College Harris first played as a scrum-half for the under 17 under the guidance of Janka Kiridena and Lohan Ratwatte.

While playing for the under, 17, he was invited to play for the senior team as a third-row forward and ended up as number 'eight' and led the side in his last year. However, both Omar's (Iswan and Haris - father and the son), are from a tough breed.

The father himself is a Trinity 'Lion' in 1969. Harris was conditioned by the stern boarding life had to endure, even though his grandparents lived two miles away from the school in Kandy.

Harris enjoyed playing rugby at Trinity. He led the side to win the 'Bradby' in 1995, and he had players who were champions in the trade for fast open rugby. They had a champion coach Quentin Israel.

A knee-injury by Harris sustained in the 1989 Asiad in Singapore which aggravated in 1999 at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, made him to go for premature retirement at the same age as Kavan Rambuwella. Kavan retired when he was no longer enjoying the game.