Team Belize to Represent the Jewel at World Rugby Tournament

Rugby is not as popular a team sport in Belize as basketball, soccer or even volleyball.  In fact there are only six rugby teams in the entire country.  But that’s not stopping Tony Gillings from putting together a national selection to represent the Jewel in the upcoming World Rugby Tournament.  The competition is set to commence on the weekend of October sixteenth and preparations are already underway for a seven-member team to participate.  Gillings is the founder and president of Rugby Belize.

Tony Gillings, President, Rugby Belize

“Rugby Belize is putting together a national rugby team to compete in a world rugby tournament.  This is the first time Belize has ever entered into a world rugby tournament and it’s huge.  There are eleven Caribbean countries, including Mexico and Canada as well competing in what they call a Round of Sevens which is like a precursor to the World Rugby 7s series and it’s in October so it’s the first time we’ve done that.”

Tony Gillings

Isani Cayetano

“Talk to us about putting together this team, in terms of the local talent and perhaps how best Belize can be represented on this stage.”

Tony Gillings

“What we’ve done is, we’ve selected the best players from the six district teams that currently exist in Belize.  So they’re from all over the place, they’re from Cayo, Belmopan, from Belize City, from Orange Walk and we’ve been training for the last couple of months and there’s a coaching group, a coaching team put together and we’ve selected the best players.  We’re training really, really hard because it’s a tough competition and I am fairly confident that we’ve got the best players for this. It’s really historic and what we want for the public to do is get behind this.  So over the next few weeks we’re going to be doing what is called a captain’s run.  We’re going to go to various different towns across the country with the team in their full kit, they’re going to run through the town so we want people to stand there and watch them and cheer them on and give them the kind of support they’re gonna need.  The captain’s run is vital because it helps to gel the team together, but we also want the people to see that there’s also a rugby team here in Belize.”