HAVING suffered the second largest margin of defeat in the sport, Guyana’s senior men’s ruggers will look to bounce back from their humiliating 71 – 7 drubbing by Colombia, when they come up against Paraguay tomorrow in the Americas Rugby Challenge.

“We never really got flowing until late in the second half, so basically, from the first kickoff we were playing catch-up all the time,” team captain Ryan Gonsalves told Chronicle Sport in an exclusive interview from Medellín, Colombia, as he reflected on his side’s defeat and look ahead in the four-team tournament.

According to Gonsalves, Guyana’s “structure in the defence was failing us because guys weren’t working to the next breakdown fast enough, so at all times, especially in the first half, they had multiple overlaps that they scored.”

Nonetheless, with the Colombia game behind them and as the team try to wipe any memory of their first taste of South American rugby at the 15’s level,  Gonsalves said the team is now determined to make things right against Paraguay, who opened their tournament with a 45 – 36 win over Mexico.

“Paraguay will play a similar game (to Colombia) and last night (Sunday) we sat down and we had a discussion around the team and everyone acknowledged their faults in the game (against Colombia) and we will be looking to sharpen up on the ends that we failed against Colombia and try to bring our ‘A’ game against Paraguay,” said Gonsalves, one of the better scrum-half in the Caribbean and the Rugby Americas North (RAN) region.

“We have two more games to go, we will take it from there. Wednesday is another game, we have no injuries in the camp. Everyone is positive about the other games and will wrap things up on Saturday. We have to come out with a win in this tournament,” the ‘Green Machine’ captain posited.

Meanwhile, Gonsalves explained that US-based Ahmad Isaacs went down two minutes into the Colombia encounter with a concussion, but pointed out that he has since been medically cleared.

It is worthy to note that at the Caribbean and Central American (CAC) Games, Guyana was the only team to defeat Colombia (14-12), before the home side went on to win gold.