Je­lani Beck­les

En­thu­si­as­tic young rug­by play­ers from south and cen­tral com­mu­ni­ties took to the field at the launch of the Flow South/Cen­tral Youth Rug­by Tour­na­ment at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la, yes­ter­day.

Five teams com­pet­ed at the launch in­clud­ing Basse Terre, Maf­fek­ing, Sixth Com­pa­ny, Sobo and Guapo, with the last two teams com­bin­ing to form one team. The tour­na­ment will al­so be sup­port­ed by the Rain­bow Sports, Cul­tur­al and So­cial Or­gan­i­sa­tion. The tour­na­ment, which will run un­til Oc­to­ber 3, will in­clude a team from Rain­bow. The six teams will com­pete in home and away match­es with the top four teams play­ing for the top prize on the clos­ing day. The tour­na­ment tar­gets boys from age 15 to boys in their ear­ly twen­ties.

Saman­tha Leza­ma, pub­lic af­fairs and me­dia re­la­tions man­ag­er at Flow en­joyed the ex­cite­ment of the young­sters at yes­ter­day's launch. "This is the sec­ond time we are do­ing this rug­by tour­na­ment. Every year the en­thu­si­asm from the kids on the field is al­ways en­er­getic. They seem to like the sport very much."

Leza­ma is hop­ing the tour­na­ment will make the sport of rug­by more pop­u­lar. "Crick­et and foot­ball is very pop­u­lar in T&T and well sup­port­ed. For us get­ting in­volved in rug­by was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring that sport to more peo­ple. From the kids par­tic­i­pat­ing and the par­ents hear­ing about the game it will bring the sport to a wider com­mu­ni­ty."

Leza­ma ex­plained that there are no im­me­di­ate plans to ex­pand the tour­na­ment to oth­er parts of T&T, but it is pos­si­ble com­pe­ti­tions may take place in oth­er ar­eas in the fu­ture.