T&T's Rug­by Foot­ball Union pres­i­dent Maria Thomas is hail­ing the achieve­ments of the coun­try's men's and women's teams at the just con­clud­ed Rug­by Amer­i­c­as North (RAN) Sev­ens Tour­na­ment which took place over the last week­end (No­vem­ber 22-24) at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

The men's team lost just twice in se­cur­ing the sil­ver medal, as well as earn­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion for T&T's Un­der-20 team to the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games.

The sec­ond-place fin­ish came when the lo­cal went down to a heavy 38-0 de­feat to an ex­pe­ri­enced Cana­di­an team known for their ex­ploits on the in­ter­na­tion­al rug­by cir­cuit. The women's team col­lect­ed the bronze medal cour­tesy of a 29-0 tri­umph over the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in a play-off for third and fourth.

In their qual­i­fy­ing match for third and fourth, the women in red, white and black first had to get past the T&T 'B' Team which they did with ease 42-2. The 'B' Team, how­ev­er, re­bound­ed to take the fifth-place fin­ish by beat­ing re­gion­al ri­vals Bar­ba­dos 22-5 in the play-off for fifth and sixth.

Thomas, yes­ter­day, said she and her union were pleased with the per­for­mances of the teams.

"The T&T Rug­by Union is proud of the teams’ per­for­mances. The T&T women’s 'B' team gained valu­able com­pe­ti­tion ex­pe­ri­ence that test­ed the strength and depth of our pro­gramme. The T&T women’s team se­cured bronze, main­tain­ing their rank­ing.

"The T&T men’s team took sil­ver, jump­ing up the ranks and qual­i­fy­ing the Age-Grade men’s team for the Ju­nior Pan Am Games in 2025, and earn­ing an in­vi­ta­tion to the Fast Four Rug­by 7s in Cana­da," Thomas said.

She al­so spoke on the coun­try's stag­ing of the tour­na­ment, say­ing: "Host­ing the tour­na­ment af­ford­ed us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case our teams lo­cal­ly which has an in­cred­i­ble im­pact on our clubs and school pro­grammes. The tour­na­ment was sup­port­ed by dili­gent vol­un­teers who came pri­mar­i­ly from our clubs and com­mu­ni­ties.

"The over­all stag­ing of the tour­na­ment was one of col­lab­o­ra­tion with Rug­by Amer­i­c­as North, the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T and the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment. A huge thank you to all of the stake­hold­ers who sup­port­ed and el­e­vat­ed the rug­by prod­uct. Host­ing such dy­nam­ic teams gave us both on and off-pitch op­por­tu­ni­ties to iden­ti­fy ways to con­tin­ue to de­vel­op and im­prove our game, both lo­cal­ly and in the re­gion."

The lo­cal rug­by cal­en­dar will con­tin­ue this week­end with the Har­vard Rug­by Sev­ens at CIC Ground, and it will be fol­lowed by the Grena­da Sev­ens which sev­er­al T&T play­ers will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in soon.