Rugby World Cups at U19 and U21 will be melded into one annual world cup at the U20 age grade.
The new annual IRB Junior World Championship will be contested by sixteen teams, the best sixteen teams worldwide. A second competition called the IRB Junior World Trophy has also been created which will allow a further eight international teams to compete on the world stage.
It is expected that the top two teams from the IRB Junior World Trophy will be promoted each year to the IRB Junior World Championship while the bottom two finishers from the Junior world Championship will be relegated to the IRB Junior World Trophy.
The remaining six places in the IRB Junior world Trophy will be won by winning one of the six worldwide regional qualification tournaments.
The Cayman Islands are in the International Rugby Board’s region of the North American West Indies Rugby Association and Cayman competes for world cup places with Canada, USA, Mexico and the Caribbean region countries. Canada and the USA have both pre qualified for a place in the 2008 IRB Junior World Championship and as such do not have to qualify in the 2007 Regional qualifiers.
Cayman has been awarded the hosting of the 2007 U20 Regional qualifiers for the 2008 IRB Junior World Trophy. The matches begin on July 7th and conclude on July 14th at the South Sound Pitch.
Competing nations are Cayman, Jamaica, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana and Barbados
Cayman has been pooled with Mexico and Jamaica in the round robin stage and will play Mexico on July 7th at 5pm and Jamaica on Wed July 11th at 5pm, they will then play in one of the three matches on Saturday July 14th depending upon how they have done in the first two matches. (Full schedule of matches and IRB press release attached)
Last year the Cayman U17 team competed in the U18 championships in Guyana loosing to Jamaica 26 – 14 and the USA 35 – 0 and beating Barbados 32 – 12 it was a very young side that has stayed together for nearly 24 months now and has played in the full Waterford Challenge series with the four men’s clubs where they managed to win a couple of games on the way. The team has made huge improvements in technical and tactical ability but perhaps most importantly has grown in physical stature over the past 24 months to rival many of the adults currently playing the game.
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