Sports
Roneil Walcott
Trinidad and Tobago’s Under-19 men’s rugby team ended their campaign at the Rugby Americas North (RAN) Men’s Under-19 15s tournament in Queretaro, Mexico without a win as they suffered a 36-7 loss to Bermuda in the fifth-place playoff, on July 12.
Having lost their four round-robin matches to Cayman Islands (19-10), Bermuda (10-7), Jamaica (20-14) and eventual champs US (59-0), the TT youngsters would have been hoping to salvage a result against Bermuda in the fifth-place clash.
However, despite losing a player in first-half action, the Bermuda team delivered an efficient and ruthless performance as they got the emphatic win to seal fifth position. From as early as the fourth minute in the 70-minute clash, Bermuda made their intentions clear as Rowan Stewart scored a try to give his team a 5-0 lead. Brandon Sangster converted the try to put Bermuda up 7-0.
By the 24th minute, Bermuda were threatening to run away with the contest as they opened up a 19-0 gap after tries from David Barclay and Jahkeel Smith, to go along with another conversion from Sangster.
Before the halftime whistle, a Bermuda player got a red card for a dangerous tackle. However, the player advantage didn’t quite work in TT’s favour as their opponents maintained their intense play in the second half.
In the 39th minute, Ramsey Soutter stretched Bermuda’s lead to 24-0, with Sangster converting the try to make it 26-0. The TT team finally got on the scoresheet three minutes later as Kedell Wilson scored a try, with his namesake Ezekiel Wilson then slamming in the conversion. At that point, the score was 26-7 in Bermuda’s favour.
Any thoughts TT had of a comeback were quickly dashed as Michael Barclay scored a pair of tries late in the contest to give his team the big 29-point win.
The US continued their dominance on the final day of action as they got a big 48-8 win over Jamaica in the gold-medal clash, with Cayman Islands getting a 17-10 win over Mexico in the battle for bronze.
