… awaiting NCTF’s response

THE Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) unfortunately continues its competitive hiatus with no word of approval coming from the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) or any other authorities, to date. While it may be a good sign of commitment from the athletes who remained active since the arrival of the pandemic, president of the union, Ryan Dey, believes the sport’s current situation is quite grim. The president said, “There have been some talks with the COVID task force earlier in this month and as of today, we’re still awaiting approval from them to hold a Tag Tournament and have continuity in the sport of rugby. But to date, we haven’t had any solid answer from them for approval or disapproval for the playing of rugby, which I think is a very sad.” “Firstly, the GRFU wants rugby to be played, but at the same time, we want it to be done in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Ministry of Health.” “We have been in contact with many health officials and have gotten a clear way in which we can return to rugby. This way is through tag rugby, which is essentially non-contact rugby, where you have a small amount of players, and a large playing field.

So far, our governing body RAN has earmarked July 2021 for a sevens tournament; that’s a male and female sevens tournament,” Dey disclosed. He further mentioned, “We haven’t had any other correspondence with them concerning this tournament, but that’s why we wanted to start the tag rugby so at least these guys can be in shape, somewhat in shape for this tournament.” Touching lightly on the senior national teams, he stated, “We haven’t called any official training as yet but the guys are working on themselves individually, some are in groups, trying to stay fit, trying to stay ready in case we have something pop up on us that we have to prepare for in the near future, so most of the guys are staying fit.” “Some of them are doing it at home alone but so far I would say, from seeing some of the videos from some of the guys, we have a reasonably fit team. It’s now just to put them together for us to start playing some rugby together, getting some skills training in, you know, some passing some tackling drills and stuff like that. But again, we are waiting on the COVID taskforce to give us the okay to do such.”
All local rugby activities were suspended by the GRFU in 2020 when Guyana’s lockdown commenced.