Captain of Guyana’s Sevens rugby team Claudius Butts says that his team did its best at the just concluded International Rugby Board (IRB) USA Sevens World Series tournament that was held in Las Vegas, USA.
Butts and his troops were grouped with New Zealand, Australia and France in the 16-nation tournament which was won by Samoa.
Guyana did not pick up a win in the tournament, falling 0-33 to the Aussies in their first game, 0-49 against New Zealand and pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the event when they drew 12-12 with the French.
Playing in the Bowl and Shield competition of the tournament, Guyana went down to hosts USA 12-33 and lost 7-31 to Scotland.
“I think we made a statement to the rest of the top rugby nations that Guyana can be competitive at this level,” said Butts during his exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport after returning home yesterday. He is of the opinion that the team lost concentration against Australia after the first half and failed to recover.
“If you check against Australia, at half time we held them down and were still in the game because they led 7-0, I think we surprised a lot of people by this but what happened I think we just fell out of the game and by the time we caught our selves, it was a bit too late and we lost,” Butts said.
He said that coming against the tournament favourite’s New Zealand; their intention was to go out and cop a win.
“We had a 21 to none odds of winning the tournament, I mean looking at the group alone, a lot of person’s wrote us off but after our first game, people started looking at us very seriously, so we went against New Zealand with the intention of winning that game. We knew that they are the top team on the rugby circuit but it didn’t work as planned,” said Butts.
He recalled that they used the experience of playing against New Zealand and took it into the game against France who are the world’s fourth highest Sevens playing nation. Ego was high in the camp when they went out against the French Butts said.
“I don’t know, but we had a feeling that something good was going to happen and so we went out there not to draw any game, we really wanted to win and we thought that France couldn’t beat us, but we ended the game 12 – 12 but we really wanted to win. Anyway, I think it did a lot for us going there you know,” said Butts.
Guyana lost to the USA in the quarter finals of the Bowl competition with UK based Dominic Lespierre and Ryan Gonsalves scoring the team’s only tries.
In the Shield competition they lost to Scotland with winger and captain Butts scoring a try and Theodore Henry making good the conversion.
“For me, I think that against the USA, we had a big height disadvantage but we still did well. We didn’t play as good in the first half but in the second half, we bounced back and did well cause Ryan (Gonsalves), Dominic (Lespierre) and Kevin (McKenzie) they came on very strong for us,” said Butts.
He added:”In the game against Scotland, we were going well and I think it was after we lost Dominic we just fell. He got a hit and blacked out. The game had to stop for about five minutes, but after it restarted, we lost momentum and just didn’t recover.”
The Guyana and West Indies Sevens team captain said that the exposure at the highest level in Sevens rugby did well for those who are new to that type of game and said that he does not think that the journey was wasted.
“We went there and did our best, you know, it’s a team thing and I think some of the guys who are regulars on the West Indies, who played in the tournaments like Kevin McKenzie and Albert La Rose were outstanding then we had Dominic who plays in England and the other guys stepped up as well, but this a team game you know and I think we played as a team and give our all,” Butts noted.
Guyana by virtue of winning the North American and West Indies Rugby Association (NAWIRA) tournament last year in Mexico, have booked a spot at this year’s Commonwealth Games that is slated for October 3 – 14 in New Delhi India.
The long standing team captain who piloted his side to four consecutive Caribbean Sevens Championships pointed out that now they will take a week off and would return with some gym work and would continue to train as a team over a period of time.
