Pepsi Hornets proved to be the most powerful team on Saturday evening at the National Park, in the inaugural Guinness Rugby Sevens tournament, sweeping both male and female categories along with the two most valuable player (MVP) prizes.
In the male division, the team would have played unbeaten in all their four preliminary matches, inflicting some heavy defeats to their opponents to qualify easily for the semi-finals. In the knock-out match, they played Police Falcons who they demolished 31-7, afterwhich they faced Yamaha Caribs in the final defeating them 29-10.
In the third place play-off, Falcons where whipped 0-19 by the Guyana Defence Force team; Panthers was the other competing team in the tournament.
Meanwhile in the female category, which was competed between Hornets and Caribs, saw the former winning all the three preliminary matches, which meant there was no need for a final.
The male victors collected $100,000 while Caribs and GDF received $50,000 and $25,000 respectively and the winning females copping $50,000; Hornets duo of Natasha Andrews and Elwane Chase won the $5,000 prize for MVPs.
Captain of the Hornets Ryan Gonsalves in speaking to this publication after the resounding victory explained that his team had to put in an extra effort to secure the victory.
“ We had to dig deep, take each game one at a time since we knew it would have been a long day, we brought in some older players who are based in Trinidad and Tobago, Ryan Hinckson and Ronald Mayers and they were a major impact for us”, the captain stated.
More so the experienced rugby player is happy that there were some cash incentives for players as it gives a chance for the some to earn and also helps build as his club is also in a rebuilding stage attempting to attract new players.
Looking at the bigger picture, the Green Machine player felt the tournament would have been extremely beneficial considering that the national team is set to take part in the Hong Sevens in April as it will help will give the players the much needed practice.
