IRB to receive official protest letter shortly – Green

Oct 07, 2016, Sports, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....etter-shortly-green/

-team will bounce back – Coach

Conceding that he do not expect much to be done, President of the Guyana Rugby Football Union (GRFU) Peter Green speaking at a press briefing called to do a post mortem on Guyana’s ‘Green Machine’ performance against Mexico in the RAN final, however, confirmed that they will be lodging an official protest to the International Rugby Board (IRB) very shortly.
The briefing which was held at Olympic House also had in attendance Head Coach Laurie Adonis, PRO Daniel Anderson and Manager Robin Roberts and they sought to give the media an assessment of Guyana’s display against the Mexicans which they lost 32-3.
The Union Head told the gathering that while visiting teams should not expect everything to go their way, there are certain rules that must be followed and according to him this was not the case when the two teams faced each other last Saturday.
Green said that even before the game commenced Guyana was subjected to unfriendly treatment from the host, having to hustle on the road to get a bus to get them to the venue and this was after they were promised at a Manager’s Meeting held the day before that both teams will be shuttled to the arena two hours ahead of game time.
He revealed that after realising that no bus was coming they had to go on the road to get a bus and this action managed to delay their arrival at the venue, forcing them to significantly shorten their warm-up time despite pleading with the game officials to understand their plight.
He said because of the time they took to beseech the officials the need to warm-up properly it prevented them from making a thorough inspection of the outfield and they failed to notice that the goal posts were on the dead ball line and the tryline was in front of goal posts rather than being behind.
This according to him was unusual and certainly a development that was strange to the Guyanese players.
Asked whether they could have pulled out the game, Green said that once the Match Commissioner and Referee agree that the outfield is suitable for the game to be played they have no choice but to take the field which they did.
He, however, cautioned that persons do not rush to judgement about the team’s performance, but rather look at what the sport has done over the years with little resources.
“This team has performed tremendously over the years with little resources and we must not forget that,” Green noted.
Adonis in his remarks said that while the loss was a learning experience for many of the young players, he felt that they did not bring their A-game and this he blamed for the loss.
According to Adonis, they had many chances to make it a game, but several bad plays on the defensive end which resulted in points for the Mexicans were the contributing factors for the defeat.
Adonis said the team is a resilient one and he is optimistic that they will rebound.
The seven-time Sevens champions will now set its focus on the RAN Championship slated for November 12-13 in Trinidad and Tobago.
Meanwhile, Green thanked the Government of Guyana, National Sports Commission, Ministry of Education, John Fernandes Ltd, the Argentine Embassy and Patron Christopher ‘Kit’ Nascimento for all the support they offered respectively.