By John Birch.
The Caribbean. Sun, sea, summer holidays, and – for the next couple of days – rugby.
The sixth NACRA Caribbean Women’s Sevens kicks off this afternoon, with hosts Guyana aiming for their third back-to-back win. The teams competing alongside Guyana are Mexico, St Lucia, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
Guyana, captained by Sabola Gray, the team is virtually unchanged from the squad that dominated the 2009 competition, held only last November in the altitude of Mexico City. Mexico - an impressive third last time round on their first ever tournament – will be attempting to repeat their success, so do with November’s runners-up St Lucia, and Cayman Islands.
In practice none of these three should prove a significant barrier to Guyana’s success – of rather more significance will be the return of Trinidad & Tobago and Jamaica – the leading Caribbean team in first three years of the event. Both missed 2009 due to financial difficulties.
Finance remains the biggest barrier to the growth of the game in the Caribbean. Though the tournament has been an annual event since 2005, a full entry from all the islands has not always been possible. 2010 is no different, with Bahamas and St Vincent, but overall 2010 will still be one of the best turn-outs of Caribbean teams. USA and Canada have also entered in the past, but would seem to have other things on their minds this summer.
The six teams will play in a single round-robin today and tomorrow morning, with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals tomorrow afternoon. The 2008 and 2009 tournaments featured a live internet video feed, but that does not appear to be on offer this year. However, results should be published on the NACRA website at http://www.nawira.com/articles/nacra-women39-s-7s-results/ during the tournament.
