Once the Guyana Rugby Football Union fully supports a youth rugby programme, Laurence Adonis, 71, national rugby coach and former national player is confident Guyana can again play competitively and surpass its achievements made in the regional and international arena in recent years.
“We really messed up when we stopped allowing the youth programme to work. To get back to where we reached with rugby and go even higher we need to rekindle something like that. Some of the things that interest youths in sports are no more because sportsmen are not rewarded or benefit much from sports in Guyana. We don’t place priority on sports like some countries do. Our administrators care more about themselves than the athletes.”
Adonis told Stabroek Weekend the GRFU asked him about three weeks ago to assist in group coaching on playing the offense of the game. “We are trying get things back to a level of competitiveness and back on par with some of the other regional teams. At the pinnacle of our game, we drew with France, one of the top teams in the world, in the International IRB World Sevens Series tournament. We were so good we were taking part in the International Rugby Board (IRB) World Series with some of the best teams in the world.”
He attended Campbellville Government School and left at 15 years to assist his mother, a single parent. He has four siblings. He worked initially as a tailor with the Guyana Police Force, sewing uniforms for state entities. As a tailor, he sewed the first set of trunks for players of Camptown Football Club, which he helped to form in 1972, from red cloths that were used to decorate a venue for a celebratory occasion and the first set of over 60 pairs of trunks for the national youth rugby team free of cost.
“Those days I played football at the under 16 level for a Campbellville team, then myself and some others formed Camptown FC. For the rest of my teenage years until I was about 25 years I played for Camptown.”
Adonis also played for Victoria FC then joined Malteenoes Sports Club at the senior level. “At Malteenoes I was picked for the national squad but I was never made to play.”
When his brother Noel Adonis and other players from Queen’s College play-ed rugby with Hornets Rugby Football Club in the National Park, he watched them play. One weekend they invited him to play and he fell for the sport but played rugby in the afternoons and at nights played competitive football for Camptown.
On his first day playing rugby he played as a winger and scored. He played for Hornets from the mid-1970s to 1997, when he retired as a player at 47 years.
He played rugby for 10 years without being selected to the national team. “At 35 years, the age most players retire, I made the national team. The next year they dropped me saying I was too old. When players who replaced me couldn’t make the cut they put me back.” He played for 10 more years at the national level.”
The small-built Adonis first played in the national team as an inside centre in the three quarter line because of his kicking skills and stepping ability, then played as a hooker because of his football background. “I was so competitive at hooking I played in the national team for most of my years as a hooker.”
He last played in the national team at fullback because of his versatility and stamina.
Playing in the national team for the first time in the McGregor Cup series at home against Trinidad and Tobago (TT), Guyana won the first match but lost the tournament, 2-1. “After that we didn’t win against TT until after I started coaching the youth team. I wasn’t the kind of person the GRFU thought would be a good coach. I took on coaching as a challenge because I wanted to beat everyone regardless [of] if we were friends. Whenever the captaincy was passed on, they bypassed me. When I started to coach the youths nothing much was supposed to come out of it. Most of my coaching life was voluntary. I coached the youth team for three years before I was paid as a coach. When the then GRFU president, Kit Nascimento, told me if I didn’t do what he wanted me to do he was not going to renew my contract, I walked away from coaching the Under 18s.”
Adonis regretted walking away because rugby suffered. “It never crossed my mind that things would have gone that bad. On reflection I could have done it better in my brash way. I am still proud of what we did because it shows what we can accomplish.”
Youth team, Hornets
In regional competitions Adonis thought local players gave up too easily. “Every time we went to Trinidad or elsewhere in the Caribbean we saw their youth teams playing and we always vowed to start one but never did. Sometime in late 2009, Conrad Arjoon sent some guys who lived behind his shop in Camp and Quamina streets and further down Quamina and Waterloo streets, to me at the National Park. That was how my coaching started with the Under 16 and Under 18 guys.”
Proud of who most of his youth players have become, he said, “Rugby gave some of them discipline. Some came from the worst yards you can think about with drugs and stealing as a way of life. We searched most of their bags because who hadn’t a knife or ‘a juker,’ had a piece of scissors. We had to straighten out that part of their life first.”
On coaching, he said, “I never went anywhere to learn to coach but I had to do certification courses. Most of the things I did with rugby came from football, that is, I understood areas, angles, body language and games situation. So when I came to coaching rugby it was like a breeze.”
In 2001 the under 16 team played their TT counterparts and lost. “The first two years we worked without the union’s support. The GRFU started to embrace us when we began challenging the senior teams. About that time the IRB (International Rugby Board) informed the union that if they started a youth programme they would fund it. We were there. The IRB did what they had to do. That was how we came of age. It was me and those youths in the sun, rain and flood.”
In their first youth tournament in 2003 for the Caribbean championship the finals consisted of a play-off against TT. Guyana won the first match, drew in the second and won the tournament by three points in the final match even though two senior GRFU officials, Noel Adonis and Nascimento, objected to him replacing the kicker for the final penalty kick which eventually won them the tournament.
“That is how those young guys made the senior national team. After that we played unbeaten for five years. We lost two tournaments one by a kick off and the other based on the points system.”
When the youth players started playing competitively they had no youth team to play against so Adonis targeted the senior players.
“The youths were either fast or strong and I developed their skills in steps, switch and other fancy strides to outsmart the opponents. We started by losing to the senior players and then beating them. It caused a lot of strife because the senior players said I had the youths disrespecting them. It was me and these youths against the rest of the country’s rugby fraternity.”
To motivate the youths, he was strict and reminded them on overseas tournament that he was their ‘daddy’. “We used to have serious fun. Ninety five per cent of those I put have made it in those positions in rugby and in life.”
Adonis and the youths stuck together. “We had players like Kevin McKenzie, Elwin Chase, Keith Lawson, Ryan Gonsalves, Albert La Rose, Mateo Friends, Alwyn Etwah, Richard Staglon, Ronald Mayers and Claudius Butts. When they came of age and joined the national team, Guyana rugby took off and we started to beat TT, the rest of the Caribbean and some of the North American countries, including Mexico and USA South. Again we made it to the North American Caribbean Rugby Association/Rugby Americas North championships for six more years.”
At about this time Adonis and Nascimento fell out because the president’s perceived emphasis on the senior teams and not on a youth programme to fill the gap created by the former youth players who were playing at the senior level.
“I left the system and after that we lost some games at the youth level. We had good youth players who could have made any team in the world but they never got the push. Some people questioned if we allowed the players to go abroad, how would they be replaced? It was stupid. We were churning out players.”
While with the youth programme Adonis coached Hornets teams. “We became like juggernauts winning for umpteen years. In sevens’ matches we sometimes fielded four teams because all the youths joined Hornets with me. Sometimes two Hornets teams were in the finals. Even in the 15s team out of the 22-member squad we would have 14 or 15 youth players. Coming down the stretch Hornets started failing its youths. I decided I was not coaching Hornets anymore. I believe in helping our players, whether it is to help them find a job, play in a game or to get into the national team.”
Wolves and Panthers
Adonis then coached the University of Guyana rugby team, UG Wolves. “After a few years of coaching them they took part in a yearend tournaments in Trinidad. At one time UG Wolves was the best team in Guyana. When UG sports administrators and Adonis did not see eye-to-eye he left as coach and the players followed him. “I was a little disappointed the UG officials never really tried to find out what caused the rift after seeing a team doing good and winning a lot of trophies.”
Left with a bunch of players and no team, they formed the Panthers RFC. “As Panthers, which now include secondary school children, we continued our dominance of the game. When people see our sizes, they underestimate us. Just saying, Panthers play creatively and are good at supporting one another in competitive rugby.”
Downward trend
After winning for a few years, Adonis recalled the GRFU held a get-together to award the person who made the youth programme and team a success. “It wasn’t given to me. I laughed because I was out there running this programme, winning every tournament and doing whatever it took to make it a success.”
He continued, “When we were at the top of our game and ready to break into the top ranks, the GRFU imported a coach from Barbados. We used to beat Barbados with this same guy coaching Barbados national team. Even Guyana at the top of their game did better than the West Indies Rugby team which he coached and where I had several players.” Adonis was a selector for West Indies Rugby.
After winning for years and with the momentum, Adonis, as coach, went with the Barbadian coach who was technical director to Mexico in the North American Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Sevens Championship in December 2014. “We beat Mexico in the finals. That was one of the best tournaments Guyana ever played in. Returning home through Panama a guy told me our team was the most unselfish team he ever saw playing. The following year Guyana represented the Caribbean in the US Sevens tournament in Las Vegas. The year after I was given the Coach of the Year Award by the Guyana Olympic Association, the Barbadian was appointed head coach. GOA acknowledged what I was doing. Twice I was nominated for the best coach award.”
At one time, apart from cricket, Adonis said, rugby was the only sports team doing well for Guyana. “When we went to certain places they didn’t even know a country called Guyana existed. After Guyana’s winning streak began to decline and the head coach was eplaced with several other coaches, Adonis said, “Players were no longer used to a particular style of coaching and some of the key youth players migrated. Everybody started to bad talk the system and blamed the coaches. We really lost sight of what was the big picture and how homegrown was working for us.”
Adonis, who was also the first coach for the women’s team and the assistant coach for the senior team was always a part of national teams leaving the country for tournaments because of his technical know-how.
A father figure and mentor to the youth players, Adonis feels good when past players, students he tutored in rugby for Physical Education and Sport at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations, or parents, show their appreciation. At the height of the pandemic UG former players put together a fund for him from their salaries.
He never regretted choosing rugby over football. “Football took me to Berbice, Linden and over the river but rugby took me all over the world.”
