Jamaica’s rugby teams to the Hong Kong Sevens tournament were on the receiving end of heavy defeats today, but Coleen Lewis, assistant manager of the female team, thought the experience was invaluable.

The females lost all three games 0-54 to eventual champion Japan, 0-68 to China and brought the house down when they scored for the first time losing 7-22 to the Netherlands.

“This was a tremendous opportunity for the Jamaican female team (as) it’s their first time here and the women learnt a lot. We were beaten, but we got an exposure that money cannot buy,” she noted.

The Jamaican female team consists of seven local-based players and five based in Canada and Lewis believesthe mixture and synergy of both sets of girls blended well for the country and will be valuable going forward.

“This has given them fire in their bellies to go back to Jamaica to learn and train and implement what they have seen,” Lewis said from Hong Kong yesterday.

Jamaica’s only scorer was GC Foster College’s 19-year-old Dae-Marie Whyte, who is the youngest on the team.

“When we got our only try in our last game, everybody got up and cheered for Jamaica. It was overwhelming and we are motivated to come back and qualify for next year’s competition,” said Lewis.

Meanwhile, the male team lost 12-31 to Germany and 5-14 to Tongo and is scheduled to play Uganda today.