T&T se­nior men’s na­tion­al rug­by team ad­vanced to the quar­ter­fi­nal round at the Rug­by Amer­i­c­as North (RAN) Su­per Sev­ens Tour­na­ment at the Thomas A Robin­son Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas on Sat­ur­day

This af­ter the Sha­keel Dyte-cap­tained lo­cal rug­ger men end­ed their three-team round-robin Pool A qual­i­fiers with a 1-1 record be­hind Cana­da and ahead of win­less British Vir­gin Is­lands.

Play­ing in their first RAN Tour­na­ment since the on­set of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in 2019, Dyte and his team­mates were steam­rolled 33-7 by the Cana­di­ans in their first match of the two-day event with Nigel Balling­ton scor­ing the lone try for T&T in the en­counter which serves as part of the qual­i­fiers for the Rug­by World Cup Sev­ens 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa in Sep­tem­ber, along with the Com­mon­wealth Games 2022 in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land in Ju­ly/Au­gust.

How­ev­er, in their fi­nal pool match, T&T crushed the British Vir­gin Is­lands 41-5 af­ter Cana­da al­so won against BVI 36-0.

The oth­er teams to qual­i­fy for the men’s quar­ter­fi­nals on Sun­day from 10.28 am are Pool B duo, Ja­maica (2-0) and Cu­ra­cao (1-1); Pool C pair, Mex­i­co (3-0) and Cay­man Is­lands (2-1), and from Pool D, Bar­ba­dos (2-0) and Bermu­da (1-1).

The semi­fi­nals are card­ed to be­gin at 1.24 pm fol­lowed by the fi­nal at 6.10 pm

The lo­cal women led by co-cap­tains Nico­lette Pan­tor and Al­ix Lewis end­ed a tough first day on a high with a 22-0 blank­ing of Cay­man Is­lands to keep alive their top three hopes with a 1-2 record ahead of their fi­nal round-robin match on Sun­day from 10.05 am, against Mex­i­co, win­ners over the Cay­man Is­lands 48-5 fol­lowed by a lop­sided loss to Cana­da, 0-45.

In their first two match­es in their five-team round-robin se­ries, T&T women went un­der to Cana­da 0-44 and Ja­maica (10-27).

Mex­i­co al­so faces Ja­maica and Cana­da plays Ja­maica in the fi­nal round of women’s round-robin match­es on Sun­day.

The top two teams in the women’s round-robin will con­test the fi­nal from 5.48 pm be­fore which the third and fourth-placed teams will meet for bronze from 2.30 pm.

At the end of the com­pe­ti­tion, the top two men’s teams and one women’s team from the event will book their tick­ets to the Rug­by World Cup Sev­ens 2022, while the high­est-placed men’s team el­i­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate at the Com­mon­wealth Games 2022 in Birm­ing­ham will rep­re­sent RAN, along­side Cana­da who has al­ready pre-qual­i­fied for both men and women.

USA men’s and women’s teams have al­ready qual­i­fied for the Rug­by World Cup Sev­ens in South Africa based on their fin­ish­ing po­si­tions at the 2018 edi­tion of the tour­na­ment in San Fran­cis­co, which means that RAN will be rep­re­sent­ed by three men’s teams and two women’s teams in South Africa.

This is the first in­ter­na­tion­al sev­ens com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by RAN since last year’s Fire­minds RAN Sev­ens in Turks and Caicos, where Ja­maica lift­ed the tro­phy as cham­pi­ons with a 21-7 win over Mex­i­co in the fi­nal.

Ear­li­er this year, RAN an­nounced that its RAN Su­per Sev­ens tour­na­ment—which was to be played in Mex­i­co City Feb­ru­ary 12-13 with both se­nior and age-grade di­vi­sions—had to be post­poned due to the on­go­ing COVID-19 glob­al pan­dem­ic.