GUYANA’S National Men’s rugby team were dethroned as North America Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Sevens champions over the weekend when they competed in Cary, North Carolina at WakeMed Soccer Park.However, USA, unarguably the most powerful team in the tournament, won the cup 21-5 against Canada while Mexico humbled Cayman Islands 26-19 to take third place.
Guyana trounced Jamaica (19-5) for fifth place while, Bahamas squeezed past Barbados 10-5 to finish in the penultimate position.
Guyana’s performance was only good enough to get them third in the NACRA Championships and they also fell short of the opportunity to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.
On Saturday in the round-robin competition, Guyana, playing in Pool B won their first match 38-19 against Bahamas then narrowly lost to Cayman Islands 14-12 in their second match of the day.
The final showdown on Saturday, which happened to be Guyana versus Cayman Islands, went horribly wrong for the Guyanese as they conceded a 51-0 defeat.
Sunday was a better day for Guyana as they won their final round-robin match 29-5 against rivals Trinidad and Tobago then punished Barbados who were playing out of Pool A, by that same score line in the final round.
After that they faced the Jamaicans to wrap up their participation. The team will now turn their attention to the Pan American Games later this month hoping to qualify for the Olympics.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Women’s team finished sixth overall in North Carolina after being out of the rugby arena for quite some time.
USA Women bulldozed their way through the Cup competition with an 88-0 win over Mexico while Trinidad edged out Jamaica 12-10 and Guyana lost to Cayman Islands 12-5. Bahamas got the better of Barbados 36-5 to account for the final two spots.