T&T’s senior women’s rugby team’s defence was fortress-like on day one of the Rugby Americas North (RAN) Rugby Sevens tournament, which opened at the Larry Gomes Stadium, Malabar, Arima, Friday.
The local women completed two strong wins against Guyana (39-0) and Bermuda (29-0); however, the T&T men had to come from behind for a 14-14 draw against Guyana before rebounding with a 25-14 win over the Cayman Islands in Tier One.
Alyssa Fields scored four tries on the day to lead the T&T women’s heavy scoring, starting with her team’s first try in the second minute against Guyana. Nicolette Pantor made the crucial play, receiving the ball just inside her own half and streaking along the right-side touchline. Tackled just short of the try line, the nippy player had the presence of mind to pop a pass to Fields, who was following closely and took the ball over for the score and a 5-0 T&T lead.
Less than a minute later, after regaining possession, T&T attacked from the left side with captain Leah Kintiba feeding Ketara Munroe, who penetrated a weak point in the Guyana defence to dart over the line and place the ball down beneath the “H”; however, she failed to complete the two-point conversion. T&T then caught Guyana napping as Pantor assisted Fields on her second try of the match to stretch T&T’s lead to 15-0 in the fifth minute. Not to be outdone, Munroe also bagged a second try of the match, with Fields recording the assist this time. Pantor tacked on the additional two points as T&T closed the first seven-minute half with a comfortable 22-0 lead. Pantor put her name in the try column with T&T’s first score in the second half, making it 27-0.
Head coach Richard Staglon demonstrated T&T’s depth of talent with a few substitutions at halftime, and one of them, Ornella George, made an immediate impact. She picked up possession about 30 yards from the try line, shrugged off one challenge, and galloped freely to score T&T’s sixth try, before also adding the two-point conversion. George also recorded an assist, handing one off to Kintiba, who burst free on the right before rounding into the try zone and downing the ball beneath the “H” in the 14th minute for T&T’s 39-0 victory.
The rugbywomen returned against Bermuda later, where Kintiba kicked off the scoring in the second minute, collecting a pass from Pantor on the right flank after a brief juggle and running in unchallenged. Pantor tacked on the successful conversion to put the T&T ladies 7-0 ahead. Fields scored her third try of the day, picking the ball up out of a sloppy Bermuda scrum and travelling two yards to score. Kintiba then notched her second try of the day with another booming run on the right wing, outpacing all Bermudan attempts to catch up as T&T took a 17-0 lead into the break.
In the second half, Munroe and Fields combined again, with the former player’s reverse pass opening a hole in the Bermuda defence for Fields to slice through and travel 30 yards to score beneath the “H”. Quaneisha Oliver converted the two-point conversion. Kalena Burke joined the scoring with another streaking run from the T&T 12-yard line all the way to the other end and completed a 29-0 shutout win over Bermuda.
T&T ruggermen start slowly
Attempting to do one better than last year’s competition, when they were beaten in the Tier One final 38-0 by Canada, T&T’s ruggermen could not have had a more difficult tournament opener than against the six-time champions Guyana in a 9.44 am kickoff.
Guyana opened the scoring in only the third minute when they swung the ball around from right to left before Godfrey Pollydore squared up his defender, Isaiah Small, and went around him on the outside for free passage to the try line. They converted the extra kick for a 7-0 lead, which they held at halftime.
T&T answered back early in the second half when captain Shakeel Dyte picked up the ball in a central position about 20 yards from the line and took off on a diagonal run. He completely bamboozled the Guyana defence with a dummy pass to Keishon Walker, which parted the Guyana defence and offered Dyte his first try of the day. Ruauri O’Farrell, usually a solid kicker, made good on the attempt at the extra points to level the scores at 7-7 with around five minutes left.
Guyana gifted T&T the next scoring opportunity. Pinned back deep in their own territory and looking for an opening, Reinaldo Niles committed a costly fumble. Jonathan Taylor was on hand to scoop up the loose ball and outpace the retreating Guyana defence to score just below the “H”, giving O’Farrell the perfect angle to tack on the extra two points as T&T now led 14-7.
But with less than a minute left, O’Farrell committed the first of at least two fatal errors. His intercepted pass at about the halfway mark allowed Lionel Holder to streak away and complete the score. Guyana also converted the kick to level the scores with 30 seconds on the clock as the match ended in a 14-14 draw.
The T&T men returned later against the Cayman Islands in the afternoon, taking a second-minute lead via Small, who skipped around the outside of the Cayman defensive wall to put T&T 5-0 up. Less than a minute later, O’Farrell received a pass from Taylor after a shifty run by the latter found a clear lane for O’Farrell, who made it 10-0 to the hosts. The Cayman Islands responded before halftime when Harry Clarke broke free from a kick-on, retrieved it himself, and, although he was tackled by the T&T defence, popped a pass up to teammate Thomas Kehoe, who had made the follow-up supporting run. Clarke nailed the two-point conversion, cutting into T&T’s lead, which now stood at 10-7.
Uncomfortable with the closeness of the scores, Dyte put some daylight between them before halftime with another unchallenged streaking run to make it 15-7 to T&T at the interval. With less than 30 seconds played in the second half, O’Farrell drove T&T forward after picking up a Cayman Islands kick-out; his handoff to Taylor was relayed into the arms of a streaking Small, who scored to make it 20-7.
Walker tacked on T&T’s final try in this match, taking a pass from Dyte to score, with O’Farrell unable to convert his third kick in a row as the home team now led 25-7.
Another careless O’Farrell pass near his own try line in the dying seconds was intercepted by Darien Montaque, who snapped up the chance to score right beneath the “H”, and a successful two-point conversion could not prevent the 25-14 defeat but made the scoreline more respectable.
