By Iva Wharton
Guyana’s female rugby team has lost its third place ranking in the North American and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) for non-participation in the just-concluded NACRA championships held in Canada.
Guyana, previously ranked number three behind the United States and Canada, has slipped to number six in the rankings.
In an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday, President of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) retired Colonel John Lewis, said that Guyana’s failure to compete in the female tournament came about because they were unable to secure sponsorship on time.
“We did not get enough money to send them. The cost to send them with regards to accommodation, meals, insurance, Canadian visas – we could not raise that. In fact we just made it to send the men’s team and even that caused us some amount of trouble.”
Lewis said that the GRFU was unable to attract the kind of sponsorship that would have seen them fielding the two teams at the championship. He said that in one case, a major sponsor pulled out at the last minute while the government did not contribute any finance to the association for this championship. That sponsorship, he said, would have definitely seen both teams participating in the championship. Lewis said that the association as usual submitted its budget to the Sport Ministry, noting the number of overseas tournaments that Guyana is expected to participate in for the year.
“They (Government) could not have assisted, in fact I think they assisted earlier in the year when we went to Hong Kong and we needed money on that occasion to go and do some preliminary work, training against top class teams and playing against top class teams before we went to Hong Kong. “That’s the only way you are going to perform well and government assisted on that occasion and we were able to go to the Las Vegas Sevens and we had very good preparation there.”
That, he said, just did not happen for the NCRA championship which saw them failing to compete in any warm-up matches overseas.
He acknowledged, however, that government did try to assist in other ways but it was not enough.
“In fact we made a desperate effort with the females – we got to a stage where we could have sent at least 10 players and two officials rather than 12 players and three officials. We got to that stage, we had the Canadian visas, government through the Ministry of Sport and GRA I think we had the tax waivers but we just could not get places on the aircraft.
“The Minister of Sport, Dr. Anthony, helped us quite a bit by calling Caribbean Airlines, using his influence and even at that level it was impossible to get on that aircraft.”
The girls, he said, made a good effort individually at raising funds, which amounted to one million dollars, “and we were all set to go, but just could not get on that aircraft.”
Asked whether there is another international match for the females to participate in, Lewis said yes.
“There is a competition in Tobago in December. They played there last year, they’re champions and they intend going back this year to retain their title.” Lewis said he has all confidence that the females can retain the championship title.
