The University of Guyana rugby team on Sunday reached the final of the Yamaha Caribs 20th anniversary Sevens competition at the NationalPark before losing to Yamaha Caribs 5-14.
The UG players had earlier stamped their authority on the local scene in their first official competition under the university’s banner by defeating the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) team 17-7.
The team won three of the four individual awards with Lancelot Adonis winning the fastest prop and longest punt kick trophies while Ossie Mackenzie received an award for the longest plank.
Some of the university players had played before. They had also proven themselves in the past since the skipper Rondel McArthur had represented the national 15s team to Barbados early in the year. Another player, Ryan Dojoy, was selected for the squad, but he failed to make the final cut.
McArthur, Adonis and Ryan Dey were also short-listed for a national Sevens tour to Canada last August. McArthur called the team’s first outing “pleasurable”, while coach, Lawrence Adonis, said that “all the hard work is paying off.”
“UG can be the best team in the country and all of our players have the potential to make it to the national level,” said Mc Arthur.
McArthur said that it was Adonis who moulded the team during the last few years. “Without coach it would not have happened. Almost everyone that started the team was fresh.”
Adonis, who has national coaching experience from under-16 to senior level, said that players were coming of age.
“This team has progressed tremendously in three short years. They can handle themselves against any other team and we have some potential national players,” he added.
He said that the university’s team was different from other teams that he coached because they (the UG players) understood the science of the game better. “Right now we are at a stage where we can beat the balance of the rugby community, because we try to track the science of the game with less focus on the brutal aspect of it.”
The university boys will continue training for upcoming events.
