THE Guyana National Men’s Rugby team have made a move to intensify their preparations for the annual HSBC Sevens World Series Qualifiers which are scheduled to take place from March 23 to 25 at the Hong Kong Stadium. Guyana, along with eleven other teams, are in the hunt for core team status to compete in the next Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens in 2013.
Last Thursday the Pool draw was announced for both the Hong Kong Sevens and Qualifier competitions which are set to be simultaneously contested on the three days.
Guyana are in Pool F with Portugal, Russian and Japan; Pool E consists of Canada, Spain, Zimbabwe and Philippines and the final Pool in the Qualifiers, D, has Tonga, Uruguay, Hong Kong and China.
The core teams competing in the Hong Kong Sevens are Samoa, England, Argentina and Kenya who are in Pool A; New Zealand, South Africa, Wales and United States in Pool B and Fiji, Australia, France and Scotland in Pool C.
Yesterday, in a press briefing, members of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) assembled to briefly speak on their preparation for the event and to discuss their participation in the previous tournament.
President of the GRFU, Kit Nascimento talked about securing funds to participate in the upcoming event, disclosing that it takes just around US$6 000 in airfares to get the team to Hong Kong.
However, they were invited to spend a week and train with the United States National Rugby team prior to their Hong Kong trip which meant even more funding would be needed.
He expressed his gratitude to the sponsors and especially to the Government of Guyana that played a major part in their participation at the Las Vegas Sevens tournament earlier this month.
Guyana’s male team have recently returned from the Invitational Rugby USA Las Vegas Sevens competition in which they came away as joint Bowl winners with the Denver Barbarians. They won three of their five matches with the two losses coming from Force Frog 15 (19-12) and eventual Cup winners Social Vibe ViPR Pups (36-14).
They defeated Mexico 19-14, Columbus RC 17-12 and Pacific Philippines 24-19 to meet Barbarians in the final, but the match was never contested because the tournament ran short on time which led the Bowl to be jointly shared.
Commenting on the losses, head coach of the Guyanese squad, Theodore Henry, stated that they lost concentration in the match with the ‘Froggies’ after being 12-12 at the halftime whistle.
“That match was there for the taking but we lost focus which resulted in them scoring the winning try in the final minute of the second half. I thought our first match was basically a warm-up after being jet-lagged because we travelled for 22 hours,” he said.
Henry continued: “Our performance got better as the tournament progressed but our match against the Pups was on another level.
“I have to give credit where it is due and say that even though we were tied with them, 14-14, at halftime they stepped up their level of play in the second half and easily defeated us.”