After two weekends of warm up games to help get the rugby players’ competitive juices flowing, the season will officially kick off on Saturday with the main aim of regaining the NACRA 7s title which was lost last year.
So said president of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) John Lewis during an interview with Stabroek Sport. Lewis also spoke about the upcoming Annual General Meeting AGM) and the calendar of activities planned for 2013.
“We will be kicking off this season officially with a 15s game on Saturday between the Caribs and the Guyana Defence Force (GDF)” Lewis disclosed during yesterday’s interview.
“Some scrubby games were played to get the boys into the competitive mode again over the past two weeks but we will be getting more serious on Saturday.”
The GRFU president intimated that following this weekend’s game, players will be short listed to commence training for the national team’s overseas tournaments.
“After this weekend, the GRFU and the coaches will be putting together players that we feel are best suited for our national team, we have the NACRA 15s games in May and June and also we have the NACRA 7s in November in the Cayman Islands. “The main aim for us this year is getting back where we were,” Lewis continued.
“Mexico is now the NACRA 7s champions after we lost the title last year, so our goal is to regain what we think is rightfully ours.”
The national team lost the NACRA 7s last year in Canada after six successive years of dominating the championships. Lewis also revealed that the GRFU aspires to send both national teams (females and male) to warm up tournaments before the NACRA 7s in November.
He mentioned that the Under 19 men’s team will journey to Trinidad and Tobago to compete in a 15s tournament in July.
Lewis added that the GRFU’s AGM will be held on April 7. The winner of the NACRA 7s competition in November will earn a place at the International Rugby Board (iRB) Hong Kong series to compete against the world’ rugby teams. That tournament will be staged in early 2014.
Mexico placed third overall behind Canada and the USA in the NACRA World Cup Qualifiers last year in Ottawa, Canada en route to winning their first NACRA title. Guyana was defeated 17-14 by Mexico in the quarterfinals which ended the hopes of the team lifting its seventh consecutive title.
