Cayman undone at the death in Bermuda

(CRFU): The Cayman National Rugby team travelled to Bermuda on 18 May to take on the current Caribbean Rugby Champions Bermuda in what promised to be a real battle of attrition between two sides with similar rugby playing styles. Cayman lead the game in a very low scoring affair 3-0 for about 75 minutes before a mistake in front of the posts gave Bermuda the opportunity to score the only try of the game and take the contest 7-4. Cayman’s National Coach Brad Cowdroy commented “It was a very tough, physical, in your face encounter as was expected. Our defence was excellent all day, especially around the ruck area and fringes and when they did break our line on the odd occasion, we scrambled well to stop them.”…

“It was not that we played badly, as a team we competed well. But it came down to a couple of little things that didn’t go our way that decided the match and it could just have easily been us as the winners.”

Cayman now face the Bahamas at home and although the loss to Bermuda will be a blow to the National team all is not lost… Cayman will need to achieve a bonus point win over the Bahamas this Saturday by scoring 4 or more tries to be in the best possible position to go through this round. The Bahamas will host Bermuda on June 9 and if Bermuda wins that game Cayman will have no hope of progression.

However if Cayman (with similar home support that saw Cayman hammer Mexico) beat Bahamas and the Bahamas beat Bermuda then each team will have 1 win and 1 loss and it will come down to bonus points. Cayman earned a bonus point in their loss to Bermuda by losing by less than 7 points, Bermuda didn’t attain any bonus points in their win over Cayman as they didn’t score 4 or more tries. So all is still to play for on 26 May when Cayman host the Bahamas for BIG GAME 2 at the Truman Bodden Sports Complex.

FINAL SCORE: Bermuda 7-3 Cayman

Photo: Ben Blair of Cayman stops a Bermuda attacker at the ruck.