The young men of the Rugby Sevens Academy delivered a stunning performance in Saturday’s Heineken Sevens Tournament as they conquered a large field of teams and showed just how far they have come. National technical director Richard Adams is overjoyed at seeing the investment into Cayman’s sevens development suddenly explode in the form of indisputable on-field results.
‘For the National Rugby Sevens Academy to win the Heineken Sevens Tournament is an indicator of just how much work has gone into the program since the Caribbean Championships last November in Barbados,’ said Adams. ‘The Union made the decision to finance the development of the National Rugby Sevens Academy to compliment the Fifteens Academy already in existence. Twenty two players were selected from the community and school programs, including sixteen players under the age of 18 and as young as fourteen. Coach Venasio Tokatokavanua was found and hired and the finances secured, at least for the next while.
‘Nine of the twelve man squad that went to Barbados were directly from the Academy and under the age of eighteen,’ Adams continued. ‘They played very well and finished seventh from the fourteen team field under coach Clark. They were however obviously still very raw, untrained, intimidated and unsure of their own potential. It still however supported the decision of the Union to develop a meaningful sevens program.
‘Coaches Tokatokavanua, Clark and Rew have been steadily building upon the players’ skill and fitness base with state of the art equipment and training and last Saturday there were no signs of raw, untrained, intimidated and unsure players but rather a quiet confidence about the squad’s potential. Sure they started a little slowly but as we have seen from our Fijian friends Red Rock in the last few Deloitte sevens, the secret is to win by just enough until the final and then put it all out in the open and that is just what the lads did on Saturday. I was very impressed.’
There are four more tournaments to play in the Cayman Seven Series which will comprise some 20 actual matches to get the squad and players up to speed. The Academy players will also get a chance to play against some of the best in the world when they join nine other teams to play in the Deloitte Cayman Sevens set for June.
‘The Cayman Sevens Series is a brand new tournament and if Saturday is anything to go on is going to prove to be extremely popular with both the spectators and the players as it offers the opportunity to watch and play some extremely high-level and tough rugby,’ said Adams. ‘The other teams participating in the Cayman Sevens Series now all realize what they are up against, not only with each other but also the Academy and will be gearing their efforts, selections and game plans accordingly. I expect that winning these tournaments just got exponentially harder last Saturday. Coach Tokatokavanua has his work cut out for him.
‘Looking forward if we can sustain the current development growth with this Academy squad and all of the younger players under and behind them then we can look a lot further than we have dared to dream so far with this program. It may be a little early still, to say for sure, but I believe that my thoughts that Cayman can compete on the World stage may just be a little closer than we hoped.’
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