A Curacao player screams after picking up the victory against BVI
Photo Credit: Gordon French/BVI Platinum News
A Curacao player screams after picking up the victory against BVI
Photo Credit: Gordon French/BVI Platinum News
The home crowd was pumped up, but on the field the BVI's national men's rugby team played uninspiring and lost to an animated Curacao team in the second round of the North American and Caribbean Rugby(NACRA)15's Championship at the A. O. Shirley Recreation Grounds yesterday, February 15.
Curacao started the game aggressively and held the lion's share of the ball on offence. The visitor stormed to a 29-5 half time lead and eventually sealed victory, 39-12.
Team BVI had no answer for most of the game when Curacao players kept breaking tackles and driving the ball up field. The message after the game from Donovan Staple, team captain, was simple. "We need to make tackles," Staple told BVI Platinum News.
He added, "We have the ability to pass and score, but if we have more of the ball then we will score more. The way to get more of the ball is to make big tackles and win the ball. They [Curacao] played the way we expected, but we never clicked the first half.
The BVI's only tries came from Jerome Springette in the first half and Dustyn Molver in the second half.
According to Staple, his team did not come out to play the first half.
"To have Curacao score 20 plus points in the first half and we scored five meant that we were in real danger. The second half we did better; we made the adjustments and were making tackles. We didn't make the tackles on the defense and that allowed them to get more of the ball and because they had more of the ball they were scoring," Staple shared.
Head Coach, Sherlock 'Solo' Solomon said the team placed itself under tremendous pressure in the first half and allowed a couple of soft tries to get in, which lifted the visitor's spirits.
"It was poor tackling in the first half that got us in the hole. At this level of competition mistakes will cost you," Solomon stated.
He explained that the game started well for the BVI, but by the second half, Curacao made two quick tries and some substitutions were made.
"In the second half we placed a tackling center in the game and placed some more speed on the wing. We had a better second half, but the ball was not recycling quickly enough and support runners had a tough time getting the ball. We did not convert tries on the efforts we made and that was heartrending," Solomon stated.
It was the second time that the BVI lost in the second round of the NACRA Championship qualifiers. Last year, Barbados came to the BVI and won a close encounter. However, Solomon said that the BVI can take very good lessons from the game and look towards a brighter future.
Curacao proved too powerful for the BVI when they faced off at the A. O Shirley Recreation Grounds on Friday evening, February 15.
Photo Credit: Gordon French/BVI Platinum News
Curacao proved too powerful for the BVI when they faced off at the A. O Shirley Recreation Grounds on Friday evening, February 15.
Photo Credit: Gordon French/BVI Platinum News
"During this tournament we tried to bring in as much guys because almost 40% of the team is made up of new players and we had about three under-19 players. I would say we are in a rebuilding process, but we have to encourage the youth to play and I think we have done that in this tournament, so going forward we are going to definitely involve some more youngsters in the team," Solomon stated.
Arthur Hogesteger, Curacao's captain said his team is happy about marching on to the next round of matches, which will be played in Barbados. He stated that the atmosphere provided by the BVI was brilliant.
"We enjoyed it. It has been fantastic to be here. We were warmly welcomed. We had a great opponent...our success is that we are a team. It's a team of friends who have been playing for some time. We only had rugby for three years in Curacao, but these guys have been working real hard to stay together. It's not a skill or something like that; we all worked hard," Hogesteger pointed out.
The BVI can salvage some pride in a friendly tournament that involves St. Thomas and Princeton University Flying Tigers.
