With T&T's first in­ter­na­tion­al 15s rug­by match in just un­der a year ap­proach­ing, the spir­it in the Ca­lyp­so War­riors' camp, de­spite a slight­ly wary one, is most­ly con­fi­dent. T&T is ex­pect­ing a strong chal­lenge from fel­low World Cup con­tenders Bar­ba­dos, but ex­pe­ri­enced North­ern scrum-half Jonathan O'Con­nor, who will be mak­ing his de­but as cap­tain, as well as head coach Lar­ry Mendez be­lieve the men in red will be at their best. The War­riors will bat­tle in the open­ing North Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Rug­by As­so­ci­a­tion (NACRA) Pool B sec­ond round fix­ture, at St Mary's Col­lege Ground, Ser­pen­tine Road, to­mor­row, at 4 pm. O'Con­nor, 34, has played with North­ern Rug­by foot­ball Club for the past two sea­sons, af­ter tak­ing a trans­fer from cross-moun­tain ri­val Caribs RFC. His in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, which ac­cu­mu­lates to rough­ly 30 pre­cious caps, may give the team, which is ex­pect­ed to field a blend of youth, skill and tech­ni­cal aware­ness, that fu­sion of bal­ance. "A lot more youth are com­ing in­to the team, which may well add to the pace and en­er­gy," said the skip­per. T&T, which has been prepar­ing since the Car­ni­val sea­son, may be con­fi­dent, but Bar­ba­dos, com­ing off re­cent 51-0 and 34-3 thrash­ing of St Vin­cent may be equal­ly or more un­doubt­ing.

The last time T&T played an in­ter­na­tion­al 15s match was last May, in a tight but los­ing ef­fort to bit­ter ri­vals Guyana. The match fin­ished 22-20 af­ter a try scored three min­utes from time from in­side-cen­tre Kevin McKen­zie sunk the then de­fend­ing Caribbean cham­pi­ons, T&T, to its dole­ful de­feat. O'Con­nor was al­so part of the team and still rues the missed op­por­tu­ni­ties and er­rors which cost the team dear­ly. Not on­ly is his ex­pe­ri­ence a ma­jor bonus to the team, but his over­all at­trib­ut­es on of­fer. "Jonathan is the fittest play­er on the pitch and will lead­ing the for­ward as prob­a­bly the most im­por­tant play­er," said Mendez. "It re­al­ly is a young team with the for­wards pri­mar­i­ly 22 and un­der, but we will have five or six old­er play­ers who will be able to be guid­ed." The team will al­so be buoyed with the ser­vices of 20-year-old cen­tre, Ag­boola Sil­ver­thorne, who three weeks ago re­turned from a four month stint with Eng­lish Pre­mier­ship club Har­le­quin FC. "His (Sil­ver­thorne's) de­vel­op­ment and un­der­stand­ing of the game has been tremen­dous," said Mendez. Asked what would be the key to achiev­ing vic­to­ry, Mendez in­sist­ed that the team sim­ply needs to stick to its train­ing pat­terns. "We are aware that Bar­ba­dos has some bulky for­wards and we need to work against that. We need to play against their strengths and move their for­wards to the side. We need high in­ten­si­ty for 80 min­utes," Mendez not­ed. The fi­nal 22-man se­lec­tion was ex­pect­ed to be named last evening by chair­man of se­lec­tors Cur­tis Nero. Mendez urged sup­port­ers to come out in num­bers. The match kicks off at 4 pm, but spec­ta­tors are asked to ar­rive by 3.30 pm. En­try fees are $20 (adult) and $5 (child). T&T's sec­ond and fi­nal pool B match will be played against Guyana in George­town on June 2.