An­drew Gioan­net­ti

Soon af­ter com­pet­ing at the Hong Kong Sev­ens qual­i­fiers last month, and graced with a full strength team, Guyana's rug­by team ar­rived in T&T con­fi­dent and ready to move in­to its sec­ond suc­ces­sive Nacra Cham­pi­onship fi­nal, with an easy win over the host team in sight.

But, de­spite a valiant ef­fort in the end, Guyana fell short by three points (need­ing a win to ad­vance), while T&T cel­e­brat­ed among many things, a re­venge win as well as a spot in the Nacra Cham­pi­onship fi­nal against North Zone win­ner, Mex­i­co. The match end­ed 22-20 in T&T's favour, but per­haps a bit too close for com­fort con­sid­er­ing the host team held a 12-0 lead at the half.

T&T will now pre­pare to chal­lenge for a third Nacra Cham­pi­onship ti­tle (pre­vi­ous win­ner in 2001 and 2008) against fi­nal debu­tant, Mex­i­co, on April 25 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

"Guyana would have been clear favourites as the de­fend­ing champs," said T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) pres­i­dent and avid rug­by sup­port­er, Bri­an Lewis, who missed the match and re­turned home from a work re­lat­ed trip in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da. Lewis, how­ev­er, kept pace of the match via so­cial me­dia, cel­e­brat­ed the im­por­tant win, al­beit by him­self. "Win­ning a close, tough game ver­sus our archri­vals Guyana is great."

The Guyana "Green Ma­chine" won the three-team South Zone ti­tle last year af­ter host­ing and de­feat­ing T&T's "Ca­lyp­so War­riors" 15-8 in Prov­i­dence.

There was an air of an­tic­i­pa­tion from both camps head­ing in­to the match. Based on com­ments from its lo­cal rug­by union pres­i­dent, the Guyanese ex­pect­ed noth­ing less than a win.

T&T, on the oth­er hand, pre­pared for bat­tle with in­tense train­ing ses­sions in the weeks pri­or, and giv­en its 34-5 win over Bar­ba­dos in the first round-robin match, and with an al­most ful­ly-fit team (ex­clud­ing Jonathan O'Con­nor) there was lit­tle rea­son to be­lieve that the "Ca­lyp­so War­riors" couldn't de­throne Guyana.

"The win showed the T&T team is ma­tur­ing in­to a de­ter­mine fight­ing unit. Guyana is not an easy out­fit to beat when they have their best team avail­able, and Guyana came with their best play­ers," Lewis said, adding that "it is now up to the T&T play­ers and coach­es to get back to the draw­ing board and im­prove. The fi­nal will be an­oth­er hard bat­tle."

Mean­while, T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union pres­i­dent, Leslie Fi­garo, who was at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege Ground on Sat­ur­day, said, "(It was a) well spir­it­ed game by T&T. We held our nerve... The win is huge for me and our na­tion­al pro­gramme giv­en that Guyana has beat­en T&T over the past few years. We have re­de­fined our na­tion­al pro­gramme and now (we're) see­ing the re­sults."

Fi­garo praised the team for its ded­i­ca­tion to im­prove­ment. "Play­ing in front of your home crowd is al­ways pres­sure. I com­mend the ded­i­ca­tion and fo­cus of the team's train­ing. (Af­ter more train­ing) we are com­ing all out for Mex­i­co."

"(Against Guyana) our de­fence at times was ex­cel­lent. Guyana has al­ways been a true op­po­nent."

Look­ing for­ward to up­com­ing events, Fi­garo shared his con­fi­dence in each T&T rug­by team say­ing, "We are go­ing full out for the Caribbean Cham­pi­onship. The U-19 na­tion­al team bat­tle for King of the Caribbean in Ju­ly in Mi­a­mi, and both men and women's na­tion­al teams, the sev­ens team (are all get­ting bet­ter), the Olympic qual­i­fiers in June. Rug­by is here to stay."