HMS Cumberland sunk by CI team
Cayman steals a ball from HMS Cumberland in the
lineout.
The teams scrum down close to HMS Cumberland’s
goal line.
The players get down in the ruck.
The Cayman defence closes in on HMS Cumberland’s
scrumhalf.
The Cayman team moves the ball up the field.
HMS Cumberland ‘sunk’
Cayman’s Rugby players showed the sailors how it’s
done when they beat HMS Cumberland hands down
this week. Here both teams contest the ball in the
lineout.
By Eugene Bonthuys
Friday, September 2, 2005
When the HMS Cumberland steamed into port, one of the first things they
did, was try to organise a rugby game.
However, with Cayman Islands Rugby currently still in off-season, the
locals had to field a hastily assembled team of players who had not been
playing for quite a while.
HMS Cumberland had played the first match of their current ‘tour’ last
Thursday against Key West in Florida. They won that contest 21-10, which gave
them quite a bit of confidence coming into the match against Cayman.
The confidence of the Navy side was however to prove just as unfounded as
the doubts about the fitness and abilities of what could at best be described
as a piecemeal Cayman side.
The crew of the HMS Cumberland might have done well to note that, where
ships had chosen to take on the Cayman Islands in the past, the ships have
always lost. Just a look at the wrecks around the coastline tells a tale.
However, the HMS Cumberland chose not to heed this silent warning, and were
soon brutally reminded.
Although they had not trained together at all, and had only been assembled
for this once-off game, the Cayman team showed loads of potential. And this
potential was more often than not converted into tries, in what soon developed
into a very one-sided encounter. By most counts the score was 11 tries to
nothing in the favour of Cayman, but many observers admitted to losing count.
The only area where Cayman clearly still needs some more work is place
kicking, as kicks for the posts seemed to go anywhere but over.
In spite of the score line, the HMS Cumberland team put up a good fight,
considering that their pool of players is even smaller than that of Cayman.
The game was played in good spirits, with the emphasis being on a friendly, if
highly competitive, game.
Although the match should not be seen as an indicator of form for the
Cayman team, their performance most certainly bodes well for the future. From
this off-season performance, it seems likely that the team will be very
competitive once the rugby season kicks off towards the end of September, and
the players get back into serious training.
With the amount of development work that Cayman Rugby is doing with its
youth programmes, the current members of the squad will have to be on the top
of their game in order to keep the youngsters at bay.
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