The tra­di­tion­al ri­val­ry in lo­cal rug­by be­tween Caribs and Trinidad North­erns is set for an­oth­er show­down se­ries over the com­ing two week­ends.

At the Pres­i­dent’s Ground in St Ann’s on Sat­ur­day, North­erns coach Jerome Poon Tip ad­mit­ted he will be com­ing for re­venge on a team that got the edge on them for the League ti­tle last month. How­ev­er, he still held hopes, hav­ing beat­en their fierce ri­val for the league. The T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union League ti­tle is de­ter­mined af­ter a round robin play-off of all the teams, and the team with the most points is ad­judged as the win­ner.

The Bruno Brown Cup, a tra­di­tion­al ri­val­ry be­tween the same two teams, is sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 20 at a venue to be de­ter­mined.

Poon Tip, a for­mer na­tion­al coach, told Guardian Me­dia Sports that de­spite fin­ish­ing be­hind Caribs in the League, he has the an­ti­dote to get past them, though his team has been go­ing through a tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­od. Ac­cord­ing to Poon Tip, “North­erns is made up of younger play­ers this year, so we’ve been go­ing through a tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­od with­in our team, but we still on­ly lost the league by one point. This week­end is the Bruno Brown Cup, which is a Cup we play against Caribs every year, a tra­di­tion­al kind of ri­val­ry cup, and then the fol­low­ing week­end we play Caribs again for the Mar­cus Min­shall Cup.”

“So, con­sid­er­ing all, we’ve still been able to play for all the top ac­co­lades for the league, even though our team has a lot more new play­ers, from guys com­ing from oth­er clubs to some younger play­ers who just came out of the Un­der-19 pro­gramme and the Un­der-20 pro­gramme, who just went to the Pan Amer­i­can Games.”

Poon Tip not­ed fur­ther- “It’s al­ways a very in­tense ri­val­ry against Caribs, no mat­ter what- the League, the Bruno Brown Cup, Knock Out, it’s al­ways like that. It’s al­ways back and forth with us, but of course, we’re look­ing for that re­venge match.”

On­ly in Ju­ly, the North­ern­ers men were swept by the Caribs 33-24 for the Robert Far­fan Cup, de­liv­er­ing an­oth­er dag­ger in their hearts to their lo­cal neme­sis.

Mean­while, the Caribs ‘ pres­i­dent, Reinal­do Bermudez, is guar­an­teed to be out of ac­tion for his team this week­end af­ter pick­ing up a sprain in his hand. How­ev­er, he was any­thing but con­cerned, de­scrib­ing his team as su­pe­ri­or in the re­cent meet­ings be­tween them. Quizzed on his team’s loss to their ri­val, Bermnudez said, “They got away in the league be­cause we had sev­er­al play­ers who were not avail­able for the game, but I think they know what’s com­ing this week­end, be­cause es­pe­cial­ly for the Bruno Brown Cup, Caribs, this is the one game that we take very se­ri­ous­ly. I mean, we get ready from Thurs­day be­fore, I mean, we’re men­tal­ly ready from Thurs­day.”

“For the Mar­cus Min­shall Cup, well, we have to face them two week­ends in a row, so I don’t ex­pect us to take our foot off the gas, so we’re go­ing in­to that match with the same in­ten­si­ty.”

For many years, Caribs have dom­i­nat­ed the fields in lo­cal rug­by, but on­ly North­erns have giv­en them a test, Bermudez ex­plained. “North­erns is one of the on­ly teams in Trinidad that can prob­a­bly speak to our struc­ture and repli­cate our struc­ture. Any oth­er team, our ba­sics could beat them, so the North­erns is the on­ly team where we have to try to be a bit more cre­ative to beat them.”

“So, they are the on­ly team where we have to be a lit­tle bit more cre­ative to get past their de­fence, or in our de­fence, we have to be aware be­cause of their cre­ativ­i­ty, and be­cause of how long they’ve been play­ing rug­by as well. So, it’s not just the ba­sics that could beat them,” Bermudez con­clud­ed.