RAN 15’s Championship…

Fresh off their loss to Barbados at last weekend’s Rugby America North (RAN) 15’s match at the National Park, Guyana’s Green machine is undergoing a ‘rebuilding phase.’

This is the assessment of Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) president Ryan Dey, who told the media, that he understands this phase and what it means.

According to Dey, “[for] a lot of the guys, this is their first campaign when it comes to playing 15’s and it some growing pains but we have some committed guys and in the near future we will be back to the Guyana rugby team that the nation knows us to be on top of the Caribbean.”

The country’s 15 squad had another forgettable outing over the weekend when they lost handsomely to host Barbados at the Garrison Savannah stadium in Bridgetown Barbados.

The GRFU boss also recognizes that a lack of competition by the GRFU is also hurting the team overtime.

“We are at that stage and we are going to make some mistakes, some of the guys will not execute how they are supposed to and one of the main reasons is that we are not having enough club competition,” added Dey.

He said that players must also commit to playing rugby more frequently which can improve their personal growth in the game and fitness which will auger well for the team as a unit.

“Hopefully this couple of loses will drive home the point that’s it just not on the coaching or on the Union but also on the players themselves, its back to the drawing board for us, we will have a meeting this week to iron out our next plans as we shift to 7’s and look to host more 15’s matches,” the GRFU President said.

Meanwhile in the game, the nation’s national ruggers were left empty handed with bruises after a tough encounter.

After the opening whistle Barbados’ Taureen Marshall got onto the score sheet with a try which was converted by D’Andre Phillip to move them to an early 7-point lead.

Phillip would convert a penalty for another 3 points before scoring a try and a conversion of his own to take the host up to a 17-nil lead.

After the break, Barbados’ Simon John scored another try to take the score up to 22 which Phillips’ then converted to make it 24-nil as the Guyanese found no answer for Barbados pace or aggression.

A Vallon Adams try in the 49th minute gave the ‘Green Machine’ their first score on the board, the offensive play giving them some defensive momentum as they held their rivals off for a good period of the clash after the initial burst.

However, the defensive momentum failed to translate to offensive form as they failed to put anymore tries on the board.

When the local ran out of steam late in the clash, Barbados ran in two more tries both of which was convert to move the lead from 24-5 to 38-5 which they maintained for the victory 38-5.

The loss came less than 2 weeks after Guyana was humbled 48-17 hosting the Cayman Islands at the National Park Rugby Play Field.