By Floyd Christie
Defending champions and tournament favourites, Guyana suffered their first loss in the past four years of the North American and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Championships, yesterday at the National Stadium, Providence.
The host men’s Sevens team crumbled to Jamaica 17-5 on day one of the two-day championships in their opening game, but hauled their way back into the competition with convincing wins against Saint Lucia (38-0) and the Cayman Islands (17-0).
Coming out from their finals defeat against Guyana in the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games, Jamaica redeemed themselves early by crushing the reigning champions.
However, not to be daunted by their shortcomings against the Jamaicans, the national team came back hard and made light work of Saint Lucia.
Dane Parks and Dwayne Schroeder were the stars of the national team’s trouncing of Saint Lucia after they goosed and out-sprinted their opponents’ defence across the try-line for two tries each, three of which were converted by Ryan Gonsalves. The other was not successfully converted.
Specialist kicker Gonsalves had his boots filled as he successfully converted after Christopher Singh completed a try straight down the middle. Gonsalves was again in the spotlight as he too attacked the Saint Lucian try-line to score Guyana’s final try of the game, but failed to convert.
In Guyana’s final game of the day, the Cayman Islands were not going down without a fight and had the home team on the defensive early in the first half.
But like a snake waiting patiently to strike, the Guyanese team pounced as captain Claudius Butts made a full field run to give his team the advantage with his try which was converted by Kevin McKenzie.
McKenzie was however unable to convert his own try shortly after, while the determined Cayman Islands team continued to besiege the national team’s try line.
Their efforts were unsuccessful and Guyana closed out the game with a try from Dominic Lespierre, which was not converted.
The teams have definitely stepped up their game as Trinidad and Tobago who didn’t perform as well as fans expected in the recently-concluded CAC Games rugby Sevens were the only team undefeated yesterday with wins against Barbados (29-5), Mexico (10-5), The Bahamas (17-12) and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) (48-0).
Mexico are also among this tournament’s top teams as their only loss came against Trinidad and Tobago. The Mexicans opened and closed the day on a high with victories against The Bahamas (17-5) and Barbados (31-5), in the opening and closing game of the day respectively. They also defeated BVI (31-5).
The championships is in its final day today and is expected to be even more competitive as Guyana, The Bahamas, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands all have two wins each.
