The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

IT was another failed bid for the Bahamas in their attempt to achieve promotion in the NACRA Division I Championship Series.

The Bahamas was defeated 38-17 by the USA South Panthers at the Winton Rugby Centre on Saturday.

The Panthers took an early lead with the opening try of the game before the Bahamas responded with two penalty kicks.

The Bahamas would take a 13-10 lead. Team Bahamas suffered a mishap with a poor clearance allowing the USA to take 17-13 lead at the half.

The home team took the lead on a try when Aaron Bodie outran the Panthers’ defence for the go-ahead try to give the Bahamas an 18-17 lead, but the Panthers would dominate the remainder of the match with 21 unanswered points.

“It was a good game. I’m really proud of my boys,” said USA South team captain Matt Hughston. “You have to give hats off to them (Bahamas), they’re scrappy and it’s easy to fall into their game style.”

Team Bahamas assistant coach Drew Brown said he liked what he saw despite the score, and that they’ll get better as conditioning improves.

“We changed the brand of rugby that we want to play, this is more in your face with more energy and ferocity,” he said. “However, to play that kind of game, you need endurance. We executed well in the first half but a few minutes into the second we lost our concentration. Our intensity dropped and that’s where it went wrong for us.”

The Panthers will be promoted to the North Caribbean Zone Division I, while the Bahamas will be relegated to the Zone’s Cup Pool.

The USA Rugby South is the Territorial Union (TU) for rugby union teams playing in the Southern United States. It is one of seven TU’s that govern specific regions of USA Rugby which also includes North Carolina, Georgia, Palmetto, Deep South, Florida and MidSouth.

USA South has been a mainstay in American rugby since its NACRA debut in 2013 when they emerged as regional champions. They continued their early success as a programme with a runners-up finish in 2014.

The success took a sudden turn for the worse this year as the Panthers have been 0-2 in 2015 and are at the bottom of the North Zone Championship pool.

It was April 2013 when the Bahamas last hosted a meeting between the two, when USA South won in a lopsided affair, 42-15.

The Bahamas is a member of the Cup League which features eight teams in two divisions - North and South.

The North Cup League features the Bahamas, Bermuda and Turks and Caicos Islands. The South Cup League includes the British Virgin Islands, Curacao, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The winners in the Cup League will earn an opportunity to play their way into the Championship League by facing off against the third place side among the champions.

The League consists of two three-team divisions with Mexico, Cayman and the USA South making up the North, while Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago are in the South division.