Guyana, Jamaica set for battle on Saturday

By Treiston Joseph

Guyana and Jamaica are promising an epic showdown when two meet on Saturday as the Rugby Americas North (RAN) 15s’ Championships continues at the National Park with an all-important clash in the South Zone Division.

At a press conference on Thursday at the Guyana Olympic Association, Captain of the Guyana rugby squad Richard Staglon indicated that the team is ready for the match despite the inclement weather.

“Preparation for this game has been hampered a little bit but I think it’s not a major setback, the guys are still coming out, we are still getting work done, yesterday we trained at the Camptown ground which was relatively good. We had a good session yesterday, I came in Tuesday and the guys were doing very well in the training session but our training sessions have been hampered a bit because of the weather, we are not getting to use the National Park because we have to prepare it for Saturday but the alternative grounds have been very good for training as well,” Staglon stated.

Staglon also highlighted that Guyana will stick to their guns in order to topple what is expected to be an exciting and fast paced encounter, stating, “the National Park is where we play rugby all the time and we know the National Park and the National Park is relatively to me a big pitch, I’ve played on smaller pitches already but we are still expecting to go out there and get the job done, our team strategy will definitely be supreme and we will come out victorious on Saturday,”

Nevertheless, Jamaica’s Captain Hubert Thomas is of the belief that his squad can topple Guyana, adding “we have a very good chance, we know that it’s going to be an equal game in terms of speed and fitness and skill… so it’s going to be a clashing game,”.

In addition, Thomas made mention that even though Jamaica has set strategies; they also have plans for a few of Guyana’s top players.

“Once you have a threat player, you have to keep him somewhat out of the game, yes we are playing as a team, we have the entire 15 men on the pitch to look out for but yet still you have one or two players that are very outstanding, now you have to have the players at a boundary at all times… so yeah we have some players we have to look out for,” Thomas sated.

President of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) Peter Green is asking the general public to come out and support the team known as the “Green Machine” as action is set to start at 16:00hrs.

Caption: Guyana’s Capatin Richard Staglon (right) and Jamaica’s Captain Hubert Thomas take a photo after the press conference