Sevens ruggers deemed ineligible to participate in NACRA

Oct 24, 2013 Sports

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Guyana’s Men’s Sevens Rugby team has been denied entry to the upcoming North America and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Championships on the grounds that the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) missed the deadline for registration, albeit by a few hours.
At a press briefing which was held at the Guyana Olympic Association Headquarters on High Street yesterday, GRFU Executives – President Peter Green, Senior Vice-president Mike McCormack and member Captain Earl Edghillall agreed that NACRA’s decision to debar Guyana was “grossly unfair”.
The GRFU President said the Union was surprised at the harshness of the penalty which came over a month in advance of the tournament, which will be held at the Truman Bodden National Stadium in the Cayman Islands from November 9-10.
He noted that the GRFU had given assurances to NACRA on several occasions of its commitment to participate in the tournament, the last communication being less than 24 hours before the ban was imposed.
According to Green the deadline for registration was 12 noon on October 8 and despite their declaration to NACRA that they were working assiduously to concretise arrangements to travel to participate in the tournament, the governing Body for the Region still went ahead and stated that they were ineligible to compete due to their late confirmation.
“Exclusion to the championship closes off entry to the Commonwealth Games, the Central American Games and it is a major blow to Guyana’s hopes for Olympic qualification. Appeals to the NACRA Executive Committee and the Chairman of the International Rugby Board to the effect that the punishment is grossly unfair were turned down,” Green, who is also President of the Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation, explained.
Green rationalised that denying Guyana entry to the tournament is blatant disregard for the larger contribution that the GRFU has made to NACRA over the years.
These, he highlighted, include the hosting of the Central American and Caribbean Games in 2009 when no other territory in the Caribbean was prepared to do so, and putting the Caribbean on the world rugby map by qualifying to compete in the World Sevens Series in Hong Kong and Las Vegas.
During that period, Guyana dominated Sevens Rugby in the Caribbean, with the Men’s team winning an unprecedented six consecutive NACRA titles.
“Similarly mystifying is the tournament administrator seemingly waiting anxiously for the deadline to arrive in order to immediately fire off an e-mail eleven minutes afterwards, ordering the GRFU to take no more actions, thereby reducing the number of competing teams to three pools of 12. Tournament organisers are usually anxious to attract the best teams they can find. Not so NACRA, who have expressed no regret at having to exclude the team that has dominated NACRA Sevens for six of the past seven years,” an aggrieved Green declared.
The Guyanese Men’s have dominated Sevens Rugby during the past decade, winning successive titles from 2006 to 2011 before finishing as runners-up in 2012.
Questioned on the reason for missing the deadline, the GRFU Head pointed out that the answer lies in the change of rules within NACRA.
“Traditionally, participating unions informed NACRA of the flights they were taking and the costs; NACRA then remitted 75 percent of the fares in the form of the subsidy provided by the IRB to assist poorer Unions. This year, the tournament organiser went to great pains to make clear that flights had to be bought and proof of payments submitted prior to subsidies being paid – the reason offered, being that some Unions had taken funds in the past and subsequently not turned up at the tournament,” Green explained.
He added, “The GRFU did not object to the rule. What NACRA overlooked is the burden this placed on poorer Unions to first raise the funds, before booking tickets, or alternatively to seek loans, which defeats the purpose of the subsidy. In the case of the GRFU, a key sponsor was late by a few days in making a promised donation available, with the knock-on effect that we were also late in buying the tickets.”
Initially, the GRFU was hoping to send both a Men’s and Women’s team, but a decision was made to pull the Women’s team from the tournament as funding had become a bugbear. The GRFU had to raise over $11 million in total; $6.4 for the Men’s team and $5.4 for the Women’s unit.
“The Union was only able to raise funds that would have seen participation of the Men’s team in time for the booking,” Green revealed.
According to the GRFU top brass, Trinidad and Tobago and St Lucia also face a similar scenario as Guyana, after they also missed the deadline. Like Guyana, appeals from the Chairmen of the two respective Unions on those islands were also ignored by NACRA.
This year’s tournament was viewed by the GRFU as critical to Guyana’s Rugby development as it serves as a qualifier for the 2014 CASCO Games in Veracruz, Mexico.
Meanwhile, the top four Men’s Caribbean teams at the championship will join hosts Mexico, while the top three Women’s teams, plus Mexico, will compete in 2014. To add further incentive, the top Men’s Commonwealth team at the NACRA Sevens is likely to be invited to participate in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, along with Canada.
Despite the setback, Green said the GRFU will work assiduously to assist the Men’s team to re-coup from the blow by seeking participation in one of the prestigious Sevens tournaments, either in Uruguay at year end or the Las Vegas Invitational in early February.
A good showing in either tournament will allow the GRFU to apply for a wild card entry to the CACSO Games next year. Senior Vice-president of the GRFU, Mike McCormack, said the move by NACRA is a major blow for Rugby in Guyana, but certainly not the end of the road.
Green described the affair as a “setback” for Rugby in Guyana, one that would not deter the GRFU from working in the best interest of the game, as the focus in the interim will be to strengthen the game locally, starting in the schools.

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