The National Rugby Team, commonly called Green Machine, will meet the force of their counterparts from Barbados and Cayman Islands when their Rugby Americas North (RAN) Sevens campaign gets cracking in Mexico City from November 25-26.
Guyana who are in pool A, are the current Caribbean Champions despite their loss in the final to Canada 5-52 in Trinidad and Tobago last year November.
Pool B pits together Jamaica, Bermuda and Dominican Republic while Pool C contains the host along with Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao and British Virgin Islands.
The men’s competition on day 1 will be a pool round robin, with seeding based on the 2016 standings. On day one, the top two teams in each pool go through to the play-off in two further pools and the remaining four teams will play off in a separate round robin tournament.
The format allows for 6 teams after day one to be in contention to win the tournament and qualify for Central American and Caribbean Games which will be held in 2018 in Barranquilla, Colombia.
On the other hand, the female team which finished fifth overall in the championships and fourth in the Caribbean after winning the “bowl final” 17-12 against Bermuda will certainly hope they can top the six other teams.
The other teams will come from Mexico, Bermuda, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Trinidad & Tobago and French Guiana. On the women’s side, a round robin tournament over two days will take place, where every team will play each other (3 matches each day per team) and final positions will be based on the standings.
Both teams are expected to continue their rigorous training scheduled this weekend in the National Park.