[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter some punishing tackles, nifty running and passing The St Lucia Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) concluded their historic three day match tournament with Brown University on Thursday afternoon on the La Clery Playing Field.
Head Coach of the Men’s Rugby Team at Brown University, David Laflamme said the trip has been great. We came in Friday had a bit of a run through that day and entered two teams in a Seven’s Tournament on Saturday.”
When asked how this tour came about Laflamme replied: “We do these trips every year and a lot of times it is centered around national playoffs. This is the first year we are not in the national playoffs so this trip is more of a team building kind of culture building experience. I normally take 26 to 28 players but this time around took 33. Our goal coming down here was to get the cohesiveness of the team together, pay some seven’s, play some 15’s interact with the locals, have a good time, see the land and spread the good faith of rugby.”
Why St Lucia for this tour? We tend to choose different Caribbean islands during the spring,” said the Coach. “These guys pay their own airfare to come here so I try to make it reasonable in terms of that portion of the cost. The program does subsidize a portion of that and we just try to spread the love for the game. We’ve been to Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Grand Cayman, Bahamas, Bermuda etc.”
Laflamme was impressed with the level of play. He told me there is definitely a mix of physicality to the game and you could definitely see a mix of good raw talent here. It’s just a matter of these guys organizing themselves and getting a little more structure and they will be able to do a lot of good damage here with their teams.
President of the SLRFU, Roger Butcher and in fact players themselves are thrilled to have played a university in the United States which is a first for them and possibly the beginning of things to come.
Butcher said: “The tour itself by Brown University aside from creating relationships and so on, one of the components is that Brown University is one of the Ivy League universities in the USA. Prior to coming here we inquired about spending a day with some of our juniors and talk to them about rugby in the States and about scholarships.”
On the field of play he mentioned the SLRFU gained a lot of experience in having the seniors and juniors exposed to 15 a – side rugby which most of the players have not been exposed to.
