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The dates and details of the 2018 Rugby Americas North (RAN) Championship have been confirmed. This year’s edition is to include eight matches and will be played from April through July.
Divided into three divisions, the competition will cater to the differing levels of rugby in the region. The three divisions are to be the Championship, Cup and Trophy. In total there are to be nine competitors, eight of which are RAN members with the USA South Panthers being the ninth.
Championship Division
The Championship division is to feature Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Trinidad & Tobago and the USA South Panthers. Missing are Guyana and Mexico, the reason being their inclusion in the new Americas Rugby Challenge.
Guyana and Mexico are to join Colombia and Paraguay in the Americas Rugby Challenge. The bottom placed side of the two RAN members will play against the 2018 RAN Championship division winners, excluding the USA South.
The RAN Championship winner will take-on the Americas Rugby Challenge team in a promotion – relegation qualifier. The winner of the play-off will earn the right to compete in the 2019 Americas Rugby Challenge while the loser will play in the 2019 RAN Championship Division.
Home advantage for the play-off is to be allocated to the RAN Championship winning team.
Cup Division
The RAN Cup Division will include Barbados and Jamaica. Each country will play a home match. The winner will move up to the RAN Championship for 2019 while the last place finisher in the 2018 RAN Championship will be relegated to the 2019 Cup Division.
Trophy Division
Currently there is no promotion or relegation between the Cup and Trophy divisions. RAN has indicated that it, nonetheless, intends to include more countries in the 2019 competition.
The 2018 Ran Trophy will involve Curaçao, the Dominican Republic and Guadeloupe. Of the three Guadeloupe are the new faces with them not being involved in the 2017 competition.
Not Involved
Missing from the 2018 Rugby Americas North Championship are several RAN members. Efforts have been made to provide all member countries with international rugby this year. The Turks and Caicos Islands will play against the British Virgin Islands on May 12 while St. Vincent and the Grenadines will face St. Lucia on a yet to be determined date.
All RAN matches that are capped will see Americas Rankings points on the line. What this means is that all matches aside from those involving the USA South Panthers will involve rankings.
April
April 14 Curaçao vs Dominican Republic
April 28 Barbados vs Jamaica
May
May 12 Bermuda vs USA South Panthers
May 12 Jamaica vs Barbados
May 12 Guadeloupe vs Curaçao
May 19 Trinidad & Tobago vs Bermuda
June
June 09 Cayman Islands vs Bermuda
June 09 Dominican Republic vs Guadeloupe
June 16 Trinidad & Tobago vs USA South Panthers
June 23 Cayman Islands vs Trinidad & Tobago
July
July 7 USA South Panthers vs Cayman Islands
