By Emmerson Campbell
Now that they have conquered all that the Caribbean has to offer the next goal of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) is to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games says GRFU president Kit Nascimento.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport Nascimento speaking of the decision to try and qualify for the inaugural staging of Rugby Sevens at the 2016 Olympic Games said: “We made a decision to focus on developing an international competitive Sevens team.”
Sevens Rugby will be played for the first time at the 2016 Olympic Games in neighbouring Brazil.
”Obviously it is our ambition to qualify for the Olympics and the only way to do that is to be competitively internationally well in advance,” Nascimento explained.
Brazil Olympic Games apart, Nascimento said the GRFU was well on stream with some of its other goals.
“Our primary goals were to of course continue the Youth Development Programme in the schools and it continues to be our primary goal.
“We continued to popularize and expand the game of rugby and these are always our primary goals,” he added.
According to Nascimento, 11 schools are now playing rugby and with the help of Youth Development Officers, the sport continues to grow and develop at the school level.
Nascimento said awareness of the sport continued in 2011 and more youths are becoming involved in the sport.
He also said that they have achieved their target of being more competitive at 15s Championship Rugby despite focusing mainly on Sevens Championship Rugby.
Reginal Domination
Nascimento stated that Guyana continues to enjoy success at the regional level.
However, lack of finances, has placed a burden on the union.
“We have now won the North America and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) championship six years in succession; that, however, has placed a particular burden on the finances and the organisational responsibility of the union because it has taken us from regional championship rugby to international championship rugby.
“It qualifies us for the HSBC Sevens World Series better known as the International Rugby Board (iRB) Sevens World Series.
The GRFU boss stressed that due to a lack of funding, the under 19s and the Women’s game have suffered as well.
“I think we have met most of our goals but we had what I consider two major disappointments.
“Because of lack of financing we were not able to compete in the Women’s 15 Caribbean Championships and the Under 19 Championships.
“Our failure to participate in those tournaments has been a serious handicap with regards to developing our game,” he added.
“We were forced to make choices, if we were going to spend money to participate in the international Sevens, which we have earned the right to do, then we would not have had enough money because of the lack of financial support from the government, as a result, the women’s game has suffered.
He continued: The women are disappointed as we were unable to participate in the championships for two years now and the under 19s are not happy about it either.”
While the GRFU has been on course of achieving most of the goals they have set themselves, one stumbling block has been the fact that the GRFU has been unable to bridge the gap of dominating regional rugby and being competitive on the international level.
“The team was not nearly as competitive as they should have been mainly due to the lack of playing on the international level.
“There is a vast gap between competing in the Caribbean and at the World-class level and that is because we do not compete regularly in World class tournaments due to the lack of finances,” he stressed.
Nascimento remarked that generally the sport of rugby had a good year but stated that without substantial financial support from the government in the year/years ahead, the sport simply will only record success at the Caribbean level.
