PRESIDENT of the Guyana Rugby Football Union Ryan Gonsalves says the floodlights installed at the National Park Rugby Field could spark a turning point for the sport in the short term.
He says the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport has been a strong supporter of the sport, upgrading the ground and providing transportation and lighting.
These two, coupled with other intangible support have boosted their preparation for major international games and competitions.
“We are happy the government is supporting rugby. We have our lights and our bus that helps us to have an outreach programme for youth rugby. We must say thank you again to the government,” he said.
“We had additional lights, but the amount of power the lights are pulling is hampering the supply that the park can handle, so we can only work on three posts of lights at the moment, which is affecting the training, and we really want to have evening into the night rugby so we can have more support and more people coming out to see the game, so we are just looking forward to having the support and these lights fixed so they can function properly.”
He said the GRFU has been in communication with the National Park authorities and hopes the issues will be resolved as soon as possible.
The country’s men’s and women’s 7s teams are set to participate in the Rugby Americas North 7s Tournament at the Larry Gomes Stadium, Trinidad and Tobago in November.
The women’s team is being coached by Elwin Chase, while the men’s team is being guided by a cadre of coaches led by Claudius Butts, Ryan Hinckson, and Theodore Henry, with support from Ryan Gonsalves.
Gonsalves says their goal is to have the best prepared team for success, thereby justifying the level of support the team has received.
“The rugby union is looking for corporate support from Guyana to make this possible because it has an excess of eight million dollars to send two teams to Trinidad. So, we are pleading with the public. We have a good sponsorship programme. We have a good package where you can come on board with rugby, and we brand your company and everything for a one-year package.”