– Nascimento
The Guyana National Rugby Sevens team which is preparing for next month’s Commonwealth Games in India had a confidence booster yesterday when they won all three practice matches at the Providence National Stadium.
The team, which is expected to travel to Barbados shortly for further training wrapped up the last of their practice matches by winning three times against combinations comprising mainly of the reserve players.
Speaking with Stabroek Sport, President of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU), Kit Nescient, said that he still believes that the team stands a very good chance of copping a bronze medal at the international event. Ranked 16 of the 16 teams that will contest the rugby Sevens event at the games, Nascimento said that the team’s performance was above the ranking.
“I don’t think that is fair rating. I think that is largely based on the fact that there are a number of teams that have not played against each other. None of the teams in the second eight have ever played against each other, and in that set we are the unknown quality,” he said.
Nascimento stated that with the top eight teams being the super powers, among the latter eight teams, Guyana stood as the best team most likely to upset a few of the superpowers. He stated that while a gold medal was highly unlikely, Guyana stood a chance of copping a bronze medal.
“You’ve got to be realistic; some of the world’s best teams are in this event. So to even get at the bronze we’ve got to beat at least a couple of those top teams, we can pull some surprises.
“One would expect that the gold and silver to be contested among New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England and Samoa,” he surmised.
Nascimento added that while the team is getting there, it has not completely reached peak performance adding that he felt that this was due to the lack of competition to rival Guyana.
And while there was some measure of competition at the recently concluded Central America and the Caribbean Games where Guyana won the tournament, Nascimento conceded they were aiming for relatively higher world ranked competition.
“We had good competition at the CAC Games, we had good opposition but we want higher competition than that,” Nascimento said.
Following their training in Barbados the team will travel to England, before immediately leaving for India.
Nascimento said he believes that this aspect of the team’s training will be “invaluable” to their preparation for the games. In addition to training, the team will participate in a rugby Sevens tournament while in England, beginning September 28.
At the tournament, the team is expected to come up against the toughest of England’s teams, including the “Barbarians”, which according to Nascimento, is a highly ranked team.
Nascimento said that what made this exercise vital is that they will be using it as a means of microscopically identifying the weaknesses of the team.
“The first real test that we will get will be in England. When we take part in the tournament that’s starting on the 28th (September), we will be put to a real test there and that is what we need,” he declared.
Arriving in the Games village nine days prior to their participation at the Games, Nascimento stated that the team will be working to iron out all deficiencies that they would have identified in England. Additionally, while in India prior to the commencement of the games the team will be play a trial match against Canada, with the probability of another trail game against Samoa, the world’s number one ranked team. Commenting on the team’s performance for the day, team coach Theodore Henry, concluded that the matches were satisfactory as it served its purpose to give the team a chance to separate themselves as number one.
“It started a bit shaky, but it was due to the fact that we haven’t had a chance to practice on a surface like this as the facility in the park is a mess. But we did good, we set aside the national team from the rest, and it was a good showing for those that came out to support, it gave them a glimpse of what we will be doing in India.” Henry said.
Henry said that the team still had work to do in the fitness area and tactical department but concluded that all-in-all the team was very good.
“There’s a fair bit more work to be done in the fitness department and we need to work on our tactics, do a more strategical analysis of the teams that we will be playing against. But personally I think our work is very high.
“We’ve tightened up on our defense which has forced teams to challenge us on the outside rather than down the middle which gives us a chance to utilize our speed,” Henry stated.
