Friday, 30th July 2010Guyana Retain NACRA Sevens for 5th Year
McKenzie hatrick secures sevens title for Guyana
Guyana retain the NACRA Sevens with a 22 points to 17 victory over Jamaica in the final in Georgetown, Guyana.
On day 1 Cayman Islands and Jamaica caused the biggest upsets of the day. In the opening match of Pool A, Jamaica defeated reigning Caribbean and CACSO champions Guyana 17-5 while in the next round, Cayman defeated their neighbouring rivals Jamaica 8-7 courtesy of a drop goal in the dying seconds of the match, an exact repeat of the same game in the 2009 NACRA 7's in Mexico. Jamaica, Guyana and Cayman all finished day 1 on 7 points, though Jamaica finished on top of the pool with a superior points differential. In Pool B, Trinidad and Tobago dominated proceedings, going through the day undefeated in all 4 matches. Mexico finished second in the pool due to an all important 17-5 win over Bahamas, while Bahamas secured third place and advancement into the Cup competition on day 2 with victories over both Barbados and the BVI.
On day 2, BVI, Barbados and St Lucia contested the round robin plate competition, with Barbados being victorious with a 39-5 win over St Lucia.
In the Cup competition, in Pool 2 Bahamas gained a surprise 21-7 win over Trinidad & Tobago ("T&T"), the latter team looking nothing like the side from the previous day, while in Pool 1, Jamaica avenged their opening day loss to Cayman with a comfortable 47-5 win. Mexico defeated Cayman 14-0, which put the Mexicans through to the semi-finals while Guyana's 10-5 win over Bahamas set up an interesting final round clash with T&T, the latter needing to defeat Guyana by 10 points to go through to the semi-finals and eliminate Guyana.
Jamaica topped Pool 1 with a 14-7 win Mexico setting up a semi-final against the Bahamas who finished second in Pool 2 after Guyana defeated T&& 7-0 in the all important second match and faced Mexico in the second semi-final.
In the first semi-final, Jamaica ran out 17-7 winners over Bahamas and in the second Guyana went through to the final with a 19-5 win over Mexico. In the 3rd / 4th play off Mexico triumphed to secure their second 3rd place finish in a regional sevens tournament in a week.
In the final veteran Andrew Fong opened the scoring for Jamaica, which Donald Walters converted to take an early 7-0. Andrew Hilton extended the lead to 12-5 for Jamaica before Dominic Lespierre pulled the score back to 12-5 shortly before the interval. Kevin McKenzie scored a brace of tries early in the second half, with Ryan Gonzales converting one to take Guyana into a 17-12 lead. Jamaica leveled the scores at 17-17 with an Everton Richards try under the posts which Jamaica failed to convert. The failed attempt came back to haunt Jamaica as Mckenzie scored his 3rd try of the match in the first minute of extra time. Full time score:
Overall Standings:
1st Guyana
2nd Jamaica
3rd Mexico
4th Bahamas
5th Trinidad & Tobago
6th Cayman Islands
7th Barbados (Plate winner)
8th St Lucia
9th BVI
