The Senior National fifteens men’s rugby team, commonly called Green Machine productive 2017 has seen them having an upward movement on the World Rugby rankings from 60 to 49, which is now the highest ranked Caribbean territory.
With the rise in rankings, the Green Machine will be engaged in a test series with Mexico (ranked 55), Colombia (ranked 41) and Paraguay (ranked 40) which begins in August.
“We will be joining the top two in the console b in South America along with Mexico as the most promising marketing development country to represent RAN [Rugby America North], north versus two of the best in South, Colombia, Paraguay in a test series which is supposed to be in August”, Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) President Peter Green told Guyana Times International Sport.
Guyana has been a dominant force in RAN at both the 15s and 7s level and though they suffered some upset defeats to USA South Panthers and Jamaica, they still have made steady progress, which is a pleasing sight for Green.
“This is a tremendous improvement and not only that world rugby has been paying more attention to this side of the region and realize that were are advocating every year, we are playing the same teams and not really improving so now they are rewarding Guyana for being the number one ranked team”.
Only the USA South is higher rank but it is understood they are not a country or nation and rather just a team that is used a bench mark to see how the Caribbean has progressed.
The move to the test series with two of their South American counterparts sees Guyana now not having to participate in this year’s RAN championship.
Green explained “We have been exempt from playing in this year’s RAN championships which means that whoever wins the RAN championship (north) will be playing off against the second rank team, Guyana or Mexico, depending on the upcoming test in August for promotion and relegation which is the new format”.
Green expressed his enthusiasm over the future of Guyana’s rugby on the basis of a talented crop of youth players. He explained that the GRFU will close all of their outstanding matches from 2017 and then seek to have their first tournament in February.
