Rugby West Indies captain Claudius Butts and team member Albert LaRose strike a pose for photographer Adrian Narine after the press conference yesterday.

The team which included three Guyanese in Claudius Butts, Albert LaRose and England-based Kevin McKenzie, finished fourth in their Pool but lost their Bowl quarter-final match against Uruguay, losing by a 21-12 margin.
According to Nascimento, the West Indies went into the quarter-finals as favourites and performed well below their best and were knocked out.

Butts and Hollis Green of St Vincent and the Grenadines registered two tries for the West Indies, one of which was converted by England-based Jamaican Luther Burrell, while Uruguay converted their three tries.

The Hong Kong tournament is the premier tournament of the Sevens Series and is contested over a three-day period.

The West Indies Union boss said the tournament was played at a sold-out stadium of 40 000 spectators and millions of television viewers around the world.

It featured 24 teams that were divided into six pools of four teams each and the West Indies were placed in the Pool headed by Kenya, who are currently rated the sixth best team in the series behind South Africa, New Zealand, England, Argentina and Fiji respectively who headed the other five pools.

West Indies Pool included USA and Scotland, both core teams and rated amongst the top 12 teams in the tournament.

Nascimento reported that the West Indies versus Kenya match opened the tournament with West Indies Butts, the team’s captain recording the first try of the tournament.

He said at halftime, the West Indies were leading 5-0 and looked like pulling off a huge upset, but Kenya scored three tries and converted one in the second half and with one more for the West Indies by Bermudian Tom Healey, Kenya came out winners 17-10.

He said it was a remarkable performance by Rugby West Indies and made the team the favourites of the Hong Kong crowd throughout the rest of the tournament.

In their second game against the USA, the West Indies were defeated 17-7 in a closely contested game.

In their Pool game, the West Indies came within two points of defeating Scotland, one of the tournament’s premier team, eventually losing 19-17.

According to him, in that game, Burrell, Trinidadian Kelson Figaro and Butts each scored for the West Indies.

In summing up the team’s performance, head coach Joe Whipple reportedly observed that the West Indies played core teams in three of their four games. He noted that the results in all of the West Indies games were close enough for the West Indies to have had the opportunity to win any one of them.

Comparing the West Indies performance in Hong Kong compared with San Diego last year, Whipple noted that the team’s performance in defence was vastly improved with a tackle rate of 75 percent, up from 35 percent in San Diego and that the team averaged two tries per game.

Nascimento reported that the performance of the West Indies team invited a number of favourable comments from the coaches of the world’s best teams:

According to him (Nascimento), New Zealand’s coach Gordon Tjejtiens said, “The West Indies had a very good showing … if you are on the circuit you would be right there (competing with the best).

South Africa’s coach Paul Treu reportedly said, “The West Indies is a lot more intense in contact situations” while Canadian coach Shane Thompson said “you guys played very well and definitely turned a few heads … congrats for that” and former British Colombia (Canada) coach Dough Branter said “you guys were right there. A couple of bounces and you could have been through. Disappointing I’m sure, but monumental progress”.

The NAWIRA general manager Tom Jones, reporting on the tournament wrote “Special mention this week goes to the West Indies, which, while it is never nice to lose, played four very well contested matches … the scores (in those games) are testament to strong gains that have been made in the past five years of World Series Sevens involvement”.

Nascimento produced a tournament magazine which published a feature article on the West Indies, headlined: “This time they mean business” and noted that “the game in the Caribbean has changed enormously over 10 years, and, in the last five years, it has become more organised, getting more and better players and also better coaching”.

“The West Indies performance in Hong Kong,” Nascimento stated, “though not yet achieving a victory, is testament to the progress that the sport has made throughout the West Indies and in spite of the fact that we are amateur players competing against the best professionals in the world, we were more than able to hold our own and perform with credit”.