THE GUYANA Rugby Football Union (GRFU) sent shock waves through local rugby yesterday with the news of their suspension of three of their leading players in Albert La Rose, Kevin McKenzie and Dwayne Schroeder. According to a release coming from the local Rugby Union, the said players are facing actions based on their indiscipline behaviour at the recently held Commonwealth Games in India.

La Rose, who resides in Canada and plays Semi-pro, was suspended for two years from participating in local and international rugby tournaments and from representing Guyana in any form of rugby during the period of suspension.

His (La Rose) penalty was the harshest of the trio, since, UK based McKenzie was given one year and Schroeder of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) nine months respectively.

While La Rose had missed out on Guyana’s historical Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Championships Gold Medal performances due to injury, he was able to make the cut to the Commonwealth Games in India.

It was the first time a team from the Caribbean was playing in the tournament and Guyana earned their place by winning their fourth of five Caribbean Seven’s Rugby tournament last year.

When contacted yesterday, president of the GRFU Christopher ‘Kit’ Nascimento told Chronicle Sport that he “don’t want to speak on the matter. The decision was made based on my report of what took place in India as the team’s manager. I don’t want to say too much on it.”

The GRFU boss directed any questions to senior vice-president of the GRFU Robin Roberts who also sat as the Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee.

Roberts noted that the decision was well deliberated and overdue. He added that a lot of consideration was placed into coming up with a suitable penalty given the fact that the three players had all represented Guyana with distinction in previous tournaments.

“We had to send a strong message and I think that the penalty handed was a fair one. It was done in all fairness with a lot taken into consideration. Like I said, we had to send that message across the Union that no one is above the law and that regardless of who you are, you can and will be subjected to disciplinary actions once it is called for”, Roberts said.

However, when asked if the players would be given a chance to appeal their case to the committee, Roberts directed this publication to the Press Release sent yesterday which states that “the players were afforded the opportunity to appeal the decision of the Disciplinary Committee in writing within seven days of being informed of the disciplinary action taken against them.”

It went on to mention that “an appeal submitted by Dwayne Schroeder outside of the prescribed period was not considered. An appeal submitted from Albert La Rose was considered and the decision of the Disciplinary Committee was upheld. Technical grounds for an appeal were submitted from Attorneys-at-Law on behalf of Kevin McKenzie and were considered and found to be without merit.” 

Upon returning from India, the GRFU at a press conference held at the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) High Street Georgetown office, said that Guyana’s below par performance in the tournament which was won by New Zealand, was due to off field distractions and that some changes would be made to the Sevens team for further international engagements.

Given the track record of Guyana’s rugby, Nascimento had stated that it was more of an embarrassment than disappointment and when the GRFU had release the names of 18 players last week to begin training for next year’s USA Sevens Worlds Series in Las Vegas, eyebrows were raised when some players’ names were excluded.

McKenzie showed why he’s unarguably one of the Caribbean’s well respected players when he drove Guyana to their fifth Caribbean title in over-time against Jamaica at the Guyana National Stadium earlier this year.

La Rose has been a prominent fixture on the West Indies Rugby team for several years and is also recognized across the region for his heroics on the rugby pitch while Schroeder too had seemed to have cemented his place on the Guyana Sevens team with some sterling performances both locally and internationally.

Efforts were made to contact the players seeking their thoughts of the penalty handed to them by the GRFU but Chronicle Sport came up short handed.