THE selection committee of the Guyana Rugby Football Union on Monday released the names of its 19-member squad to continue preparation for the upcoming Central American and Caribbean Sports Organisation (CACSO) Rugby Sevens Championship which Guyana will host from June 24.
The event, which will be staged at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, will be a historic one for Guyana, since it will be the first time that Guyana will host a tournament of such magnitude and it will also be the first time that rugby will be played at the Providence facility.
According to GRFU’s president Christopher `Kit’ Nascimento, the 19-man squad was selected after two days of hard trials at the Providence stadium.
Nascimento who also heads the North America West Indies Rugby Association (NAWIRA) expressed satisfaction with the performance of the players over the two-day trial period “and I’m enormously pleased with what I saw.
“It was some really first class players out there,” Nascimento stated, adding “It was exciting to watch … the standard was high and it really gave the selectors a monumental task of selecting the squad.”
The GRFU head said the final squad of 12 players would be selected shortly.
Also addressing members of the media yesterday at the National Park was chairman of the selection committee, Mike McCormack, who congratulated the players for their showing over the two-day trial period as well as their level of fitness “but you (players) have to top that up now to international standard”, McCormack challenged, “for my part what I saw was very encouraging”.
West Indies player and captain Claudius Butts will captain the team and he will have Richard Staglon as his deputy.
The other members of the squad are: Avery Corbin, Theodore Henry, Ryan Hinckson, Walter George, Cyon Kitt, Dwayne Schroeder, Jason Tyrell, Troy Arjune, Elwin Chase, Troy Bascom, Peabo Hamilton, Ryan Gonsalves, Chris Singh, Claude Alexander, Leon Greaves, Dane Parks and Joseph Rahaman.
The squad is expected to be joined by five overseas-based players who are scheduled to arrive in Guyana over the weekend when there will be a final trial at the National Stadium on Saturday.