The in­tro­duc­tion of de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes that will see the sport of rug­by be­ing broad­cast­ed on tele­vi­sion, is one of many ini­tia­tives be­ing put for­ward by pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Maria Thomas, ahead of the T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union's (TTR­FU) an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing (AGM) and elec­tion of of­fi­cers on May 10. 

Thomas, sec­re­tary of the TTR­FU who was giv­en the nod to chal­lenge Collin Pe­ters for the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of the union at the vir­tu­al event, has been qui­et­ly chart­ing a path­way to first-world-sta­tus rug­by, iden­ti­fy­ing the ar­eas most vul­ner­a­ble to achiev­ing this goal, in spite of the chal­lenges be­ing posed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The for­mer T&T play­er who just grad­u­at­ed with a Mas­ters De­gree in Sports Ad­min­is­tra­tion told Guardian Me­dia Sports she is seek­ing to bridge the gap that has been widen­ing since the on­set of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, and to date, she has iden­ti­fied two net­works in­ter­est­ed in do­ing the broad­cast.

"Two net­works have al­ready ex­pressed in­ter­est in broad­cast­ing lo­cal rug­by with lo­cal com­men­tary. Un­til we are able to play and record new games live, I’ve been col­lect­ing footage from past games that many haven’t had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to watch. Tele­vis­ing rug­by will ex­pand our reach through­out T&T and the re­gion. When we do re­turn to play, more peo­ple will be fa­mil­iar with and ex­cit­ed about the re­turn of the sport," Thomas said.

Thomas' can­di­da­cy came via a nom­i­na­tion from cham­pi­on lo­cal club Caribs RFC and sec­ond­ed by North­erns. She has been quick­ly build­ing mo­men­tum across the rug­by fra­ter­ni­ty as, if not the pres­i­dent, a valu­able as­set in the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the sport.

De­spite the chal­leng­ing times, Thomas said: "There are many proven strate­gies for ad­min­is­tra­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, and par­tic­i­pa­tion that we can im­ple­ment while ad­her­ing to the re­stric­tions that are in place for our safe­ty.

"We are for­tu­nate to have a strong foun­da­tion and a tena­cious com­mu­ni­ty. The num­ber of can­di­dates who have stepped for­ward to vol­un­teer their time and ex­per­tise to the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee is in­dica­tive of the qual­i­ty and depth of mem­bers ded­i­cat­ed to work­ing to­geth­er to achieve our goals for Rug­by in T&T.

"I have been work­ing close­ly with stake­hold­ers to de­vel­op in­no­v­a­tive pro­grammes that are specif­i­cal­ly fo­cused on the needs of our com­mu­ni­ty in T&T. Through dis­cus­sions with clubs, ath­letes, coach­es, ref­er­ees, and our own gov­ern­ing bod­ies, I am able to ap­ply the ex­ten­sive knowl­edge I have gained in my stud­ies to the bet­ter­ment of the TTR­FU."

She be­lieves that by sup­port­ing the fo­cus of qual­i­fied in­di­vid­u­als on spe­cif­ic long-stand­ing goals, as well as util­is­ing the abun­dance of ex­per­tise with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, op­por­tu­ni­ties can be cre­at­ed and a path­way to suc­cess chart­ed.    

"Our great­est strength is our mem­ber­ship. It is a plea­sure to rep­re­sent and ad­vo­cate for our com­mu­ni­ty be­cause I have every con­fi­dence in our abil­i­ty to de­liv­er. The op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn the same con­fi­dence in lead­er­ship is a great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ho­n­our," Thomas added.

While Thomas will con­test the top po­si­tion, an­oth­er can­di­date Don Su­cre who is con­test­ing in an in­de­pen­dent ca­pac­i­ty will take on Nicholas Mar­tinez for the post of vice pres­i­dent while the oth­er po­si­tions to be con­test­ed are sec­re­tary and as­sis­tant sec­re­tary/trea­sur­er.