By Emmerson Campbell
Guyana’s 20-nil thrashing of Trinidad and Tobago’s Calypso Warriors yesterday at the Providence National Stadium in the Southern Zone of the NACRA Regional Qualifiers for the 2015 Rugby World Cup has enabled the local ruggers to book their place in the finals.
The national team awaits the winner of the North Caribbean Zone between Bermuda and Cayman Islands. That game will kick off on June 9.
Two tries and two conversions, one each in the first and second half along with two second half penalty kicks completed the demolishing of the Trinidadians.
In the must-win game, Guyana and Trinidad came out playing lockdown defence as both sides struggled to score.
However, in the 36th minute, a try by player/coach Theodore Henry broke the nil-all deadlock to put the local side up by five. The lead would be increased by two when Captain Ryan Gonsalves successfully converted the try.
In the second half, both sides came out with a sense of urgency as Guyana wanted to increase the score line while the ruggers from the Land of the Hummingbird wanted to score.
However, with the crowd support and superior fitness the local ruggers scored again in the 53rd minute after Claudius Butts pounced on a missed penalty by Gonsalves. The national captain made up for missing the penalty by converting the try and extending the lead to 14.
Despite being in the lead, the local ruggers never took their foot off the pedal and continued to play exceptionally both defensively and offensively.
Guyana dominated every aspect of the game and got points on the board through penalty kicks in the 64th and 78th minutes from Ryan Hinckson and Gonsalves, respectively.
Speaking to Stabroek Sport, a jubilant Gonsalves said: “This victory feels great especially keeping them off the score sheet. We stuck to our plan and we executed it. We kept control of the game even though in the first half we were basically playing more defence than attack, but we played great and the better team won the game.”
Gonsalves also took the opportunity to appeal to the government for support that the Guyana Rugby Football Union is lacking.
Henry, in an invited comment to this publication, stated that the availability of Butts and the Trinidad and Tobago-based duo of Richard Staglon and Ronald Mayers enabled the local side to be locked in defensively as well and to score more tries, something the team failed to do two weeks ago in their 10-10 draw against Barbados.
