Eng­lish-based Kevin Mcken­zie's un­con­vert­ed try three min­utes be­fore the end, gave Guyana a thrilling 22-20 win over de­fend­ing Caribbean rug­by cham­pi­ons T&T at the St Mary's Col­lege ground on Sat­ur­day.

The North Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Rug­by As­so­ci­a­tion's (NACRA) Caribbean South Zone sec­ond round fix­ture lived up to its billing. T&T missed penal­ty at­tempts in­side the first ten min­utes by scrum half and des­ig­nat­ed kick­er Justin Mc lean. In the 20th minute, an un­con­vert­ed try by sec­ond row for­ward Pe­ter Bac­chus gave T&T a 5-nil lead. This was dou­bled in the 28th minute when a sim­i­lair se­quence gave Bac­chus his sec­ond try which Mclean failed to con­vert.

In the 35th minute, Guyana flanker Richard Sta­glon cut the lead to 10-5. Two min­utes be­fore the break, Mclean's kick­ing woes con­tin­ued with an­oth­er missed penal­ty con­ver­sion. On the re­sump­tion, a fired up Guyana laid seige on the T&T line and in the 43rd minute, T&T flanker Gor­don Dal­gleish was shown the yel­low card for an in­fringe­ment and Guyana took ad­van­tage to snatch a 12-10 lead with a Mcken­zie try which was con­vert­ed by scrum half Ryan Gon­salves.

In the 52nd minute, Mc Lean missed an­oth­er penal­ty but T&T re­claimed a 15-12 lead in the 57th minute with an un­con­vert­ed try by James Phillip and sec­ond row for­ward An­drew Crooks' try made it 20-12. Aasan Lewis, a half time re­place­ment was hand­ed the tee but his con­ver­sion at­tempt struck the post. Guyana, led by their in­spi­ra­tional cap­tain Claudius Butts showed their cham­pi­onship qual­i­ties and in the re­main­ing eight min­utes made two un­con­vert­ed tries in the 75th and 78th min­utes which led to a fran­tic and nerve wrack­ing end as the vis­i­tors just edged home. The fi­nal whis­tle sparked wild cel­e­bra­tions by the Guyanese play­ers and tech­ni­cal staff, a stark con­trast to the dis­traught T&T play­ers.