Jamaica’s U19 men impress again to book spot in RAN final

Jamaica’s under-19 rugby team continues to display some excellent rugby as they chalked up back-to-back wins on yesterday’s day two of the Rugby Americas North (RAN) men’s and women’s tournament now under way at the UWI Mona bowl.

The Jamaicans came into the second day at the top of Pool Two with maximum six points from their day one wins, and the home side proved their dominance once again by sealing another double, following a 5-0 win against Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) then hammering Guyana 37-0 in the final game of the day.

Tries from Matteo Cherwayko, Didier Taylor, Racheed Pencle, and Matthew Craig capped off another impressive showing from the Phil Davis-coached side, which will move on to face USA South in the final on Saturday after today’s rest day.

Jamaica’s captain, Jasper Richardson, lauded his team for coming out and playing some hard-nosed rugby against Guyana after a lukewarm performance earlier in the day against T&T.

“We weren’t happy with our performance against Trinidad, but we regrouped as a team and came back hard against Guyana and put in a performance that we can be happy with. One other thing that I am immensely proud of is that we still have not conceded a try, and from this, I think we are going onwards and upwards.”

Jamaica’s opponents in Saturday’s final, USA South, have also been impressive as they top Pool One following a 35-0 win over Bermuda and a 20-0 hammering of the Cayman Islands.

Other under-19 results on the day were Bermuda edging Cayman Islands 9-7 while T&T beat Guyana 33-0.

In the meantime, Jamaica’s women suffered their first loss as they went down 7-8 to Trinidad and Tobago. Other results on the female side: T&T 6 USA 5 while Mexico got by the Cayman Islands 20-0. The USA women also dominated Cayman 50-0 in the final female game of the day.