Green Machine overcome Barbados 34-26

By Akeem Greene

Guyana’s Senior National Rugby team, the ‘Green Machine’ got their 2017 Rugby Americas North 15s (RAN) campaign off to a successful start by defeating Barbados 34-26 at the Garrison Savannah , Bridgetown on Saturday afternoon.

Green Machine have always been a dominant against the Bajans but they had to go the extra mile to ensure success after being down by 10 points in the first half without a point of their own on the board.

The Green Machine got their 2019 World Cup qualifier campaign off to a positive start

However, they began working as the usual well-oiled unit to take command of the match with Richard Staglon scoring three tries, Vallon Adams (two tries), new comer Ahmed Isaacs (one try) and Rickford Cummings with two conversions sealing the hard-fought victory.

When Guyana Times Sport contacted captain Ryan Gonslaves after the match, he expressed his elation over the victory given the fighting spirit the team showcased.

“Today was a tough, conditions were a bit heavy we had good sun throughout the game but I was pleased with the performance, the guys played their heart out; we started slowly, having to come from-behind 10-nil and eventually we started to ketch a riddim and get ourselves back in the game”.

Though the win, sends good signs for the team, the captain is of the opinion that there are some key areas that needs improving.

“We have allot of areas to improve on, in our forward department and line so within the next month we will work on those technical areas; it didn’t totally fail us today it is just that we have not played 15s in such a long time and coming off 7s into the 15s is a bit different after not playing for almost a year and we were trying to use this game as a platform for the rest to come”, he explained.

Barbados will now travel to twin Island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to play on May 27 after which the Trinidadians will visit Guyana on June 10, a match that the Gonslaves said his team will not be taking lightly.

“The fans can take it as a sign of great things to come, we have our work cut out against Trinidad who will be coming hard at us; we are very strong team at home but we are not taking that for granted since we want to defend our South Zone title”, he stated.

The team is expected to arrive home on Monday.