An­drew Gioan­net­ti

Har­vard de­feat­ed Caribs for the first time in their his­to­ry in the T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union (TTR­FU) Toy­ota Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion League on Sat­ur­day, to go on top of the stand­ings. Har­vard re­versed a half time 8-3 deficit to stun the "Beer Boys" 27-16, at Caribs Ground, Queens Park Sa­van­nah. Har­vard has nev­er beat­en Caribs in a com­pet­i­tive fix­ture in their Cham­pi­onship, Se­nior or the Un­der-19 di­vi­sion. Ronald Sil­ver­thorne opened with an ear­ly try to give Caribs the lead, which Har­vard reg­u­lar Ryan Hinck­son re­spond­ed to with a drop goal. Caribs' Ro­ry McIn­er­ney scored a penal­ty to make it 8-3 for the "Beer Boys" go­ing in­to the half. At the restart, Claudius Butts scored a try for Har­vard to lev­el the scores at 8-8, be­fore Hinck­son con­vert­ed to give Har­vard the lead.

Caribs were then award­ed a penal­ty which McIn­er­ney scored. Ja­mal Clarke then gave Caribs a seem­ing­ly unas­sail­able lead with a try to make it 16-10. Har­vard's David Gokool, pulled five points back for the Har­vard team, quick­ly af­ter. His ef­fort was not con­vert­ed. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the kick off at the restart, Wayne Kel­ly re­ceived the ball from Hinck­son the fly half and ran half the length of the field, evad­ing the Caribs' de­fence to score the try which gave Har­vard their sec­ond lead of the match. Kel­ly's try was con­vert­ed by Hinck­son, who just mo­ments lat­er sealed the win with a try of his own. Fol­low­ing a punt from Caribs' Ab­deel Giles, Hinck­son, caught the ball, ran sev­er­al me­tres and chipped the ball sev­er­al me­tres, which he col­lect­ed through space and fin­ished for the match win­ning try to give Har­vard the em­phat­ic vic­to­ry.

The end was fol­lowed by cheers and ju­bi­la­tion from the team and their sup­port. The win put Har­vard a point over Caribs, as they were giv­en the bonus point for scor­ing four tries. In the first leg tie, Caribs de­feat­ed Har­vard 50-8, and looked as if they were to ease their way in­to an­oth­er ti­tle win­ning Cham­pi­onship. Next week­end, Har­vard will take on third placed Stag Trinidad North­ern, which are all but out of the ti­tle race. Their oth­er sched­uled match would have been against Rain­bow who have been sus­pend­ed from the re­main­ing Cham­pi­onship fix­tures. They, there­fore were award­ed a 28-0 win by de­fault (which in­cludes the bonus point, award­ed for scor­ing four tries). Caribs now have two match­es, which they must win. Their first against Roy­alians next week­end and sec­ond against arch-ri­vals North­ern in their fi­nal fix­ture.

Toy­ota Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion Stand­ings

Team Pld W L B GF GA Dif Pts

Har­vard 8 7 0 1 7 327 118 209 35

Caribs 8 7 0 1 6 245 57 188 34

Stag Trinidad North­ern 8 6 0 2 4 221 59 162 29

Roy­alians 8 3 0 5 2 154 230 -76 15

Rain­bow 7 1 0 6 1 108 246 -138 5

Po­lice 7 0 0 7 0 17 306 -289 0