Jamaica Rugby 7s rises from the ashes

When the Jamaica rugby sevens team beat Malaysia in the 13th-16th place semi-final at last year’s Commonwealth Games, it set off spontaneous and rapturous celebrations among the Jamaican players. And who could blame them?

Just 10 years earlier, rugby in the country was "dying", according to Bruce Martin, the team’s technical director and acting coach. Now, the Crocs were taking a well-earned victory lap around the Coventry Stadium in central England, after securing their first ever victory at a major tournament.

Later that day, in the 13th place final, Jamaica beat favoured Sri Lanka 26-24 but the celebrations were more muted. After the match, Martin brought the players together.

“Remember, you are pioneers for the next generation,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

Rugby's history in Jamaica

Rugby has been part of Jamaican culture for over 100 years and the country played its first full international rugby union match in 1962.

As rugby sevens gained international prominence, Jamaica, like many smaller nations, saw an avenue for success.

They were surprise winners of the 2005 Rugby Americas North (RAN) Sevens competition, but shortly afterwards neighbouring Caribbean countries began to overtake Jamaica and rugby became little more than an afterthought.

In 2013, English-born Conan Osborne was in Hong Kong on a college rugby tour when he encountered Jamaica playing in a sevens tournament.

He had never heard of the Jamaica 7s team, and the squad did not field any foreign-born players. Nevertheless, he contacted the team’s coach and jumped at the chance to represent his father’s homeland.

“That first year we lost every game,” Osborne remembers. But he was hooked and, more than that, he saw the possibilities.

Osborne, along with Bruce Martin and British-Jamaican coach Hughton Campbell, soon came up with a plan to scour Britain and the rest of the diaspora for the best Jamaican talent.

Martin, who played rugby growing up in Jamaica and now works as a United States Army recruiter, tried to appeal to the players’ sense of pride. But there was one catch.

With the Jamaica Rugby Football Union totally strapped for cash, any overseas players would have to pay their own way.

“We had to practically beg, borrow and steal just to play,” Osborne says.

Nevertheless, UK-based professionals like Mason Caton-Brown, a respected rugby league player in the Super League, and Ashley Smith, a former player with Wasps, joined up with the Crocs and results improved. But there was growing resentment on the team.

Osborne says "an us versus them mentality developed" between the Jamaican-born players and the overseas players with the disunity threatening to undermine any progress.

When he took over as captain in 2016, Osborne focused on camaraderie.

“We saw we have the same passion,” he says. “This really means something to us.”

Homegrown rugby sevens stars

But not all of the team's top talent was imported.

When Fabion Turner was 11 years old, he was handed a rugby ball at school in Kingston and asked if he wanted to give the game a shot.

As soon as he stepped on the field with ball in hand, he recalls, "I fell in love. I’ve never played another sport."

Blessed with a sprinter’s speed, he led his high school to three Jamaican school championships. After university, he was spotted during a local tournament and asked to play with the national team which he called "a dream come true".

Turner provided the jolt of raw speed they needed to compete with the best in the region.

With all the pieces now in place, on 26 November 2017, Jamaica beat regional powerhouse Guyana in the championship game of the annual RAN Sevens tournament.

It was Jamaica’s first title in the competition in 12 years, and also meant they would make their first appearance at the Rugby World Cup Sevens the following year in San Francisco.

On the field after the game, many of the players broke down in tears. “That day changed everything,” Turner said.

Reaching the next level

Since then, the Crocs have lost just twice in the RAN Sevens tournament (both times to Canada), and qualified for every major tournament except the Olympics.

That progress has been infectious with the Jamaica women’s sevens team reaching their first ever Pan American Games (later this year) and participation numbers sky-rocketing.

That said, reaching the next level and beating the top sides in the world remains a challenge.

At the Commonwealth Games, the Australian women sevens team joked that the Jamaican men’s team was “the greatest Sunday League team of all-time” in a playful dig at their amateur status.

Martin believes with decent investment, there is no reason why Jamaica's men could not reach the heights of Fiji, the two-time defending Olympic gold medallists.

“We have so much raw talent and we’re not playing full-time rugby. Imagine if we’re were doing the same level of training as other nations?” he says. “You just need someone to believe in us."

Even without much funding the local scene has been rejuvenated, with youngsters Ronaldeni Fraser and Mikel Facey considered to be future stars.

And London 2012 Olympic 200m bronze medalist Warren Weir, who made his Jamaica Rugby 7s in 2018 a year after retiring from the track, is back in the fold.

The Crocs recently qualified for the Central American and Caribbean Games in June and October's Pan American Games.

But there’s one tournament every member of the squad has circled on their calendar — the Olympic Qualification Tournament in August.

Turner, who has since retired from the national team and now volunteers his time scouting future Jamaica rugby stars, will be alongside the team as they attempt to finish in the top two and book their flight - all expenses paid - to Paris 2024.

"We have the opportunity to make history. We can do it. For ourselves, but also for our families and our diaspora,” he says.

“We just have to believe.”

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