THE COVID-19 pandemic has completely devastated the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) and any attempts to recommence activities, as the clock keeps ticking on the sport’s hiatus. The gap in sequence synchronises with the dreaded 1-year anniversary of the pandemic and has caused the national teams and players to stay active in creative ways. It is even more of a pressing issue since all of the International Events normally attended by Guyana have been provisionally postponed due to the impact of the virus. The Union had intended to resume activities in the early stages of 2021 with a 7-team Tag Tournament that featured five Men’s teams, namely Pepsi Hornets, Police Falcons, Panthers, Yamaha Caribs and Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
The two Women’s teams named to engage in battle were Pepsi Hornets and Yamaha Caribs.
However, the tournament did not get a chance to materialise because approval for the event was never granted by the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) which led the Union to cancel the tournament.

Tag Rugby was identified by the International governing body of the sport; World Rugby, as part of the return to play protocols. According to World Rugby, this version of the game will allow the players to hit the ground running and will alleviate the potential spread of the COVID-19 virus.
In Tag Rugby each player has two ribbons attached to his/her body and a tag is simply the removal by a defender of one of the two ribbons. Once tagged the player in possession must stop and pass the ball to a team-mate within three seconds.
However, the game is continuous and tagged players may pass within the act of stopping. Besides the tagging rule the game remains the same.
The GRFU continues to explore avenues that will lead to a safe return of the sport but has not been successful thus far. According to a member of the Union, the executives plan to meet in the new week to charter a safer path.