Bermuda’s rugby sevens national team exceeded expectations at last weekend’s Caribbean Championships after advancing to the first round of the 2016 Olympic qualifiers.

The Islanders finished seventh overall, fifth in the Caribbean, and came within a whisker of progressing to next year’s prestigious Hong Kong Sevens tournament.

They will now travel to Veracruz, Mexico, next November for the Central American and Caribbean Sports Organisation (CASCO) Games, which also act as an Olympic qualifier.

With only two teams qualifying to the knockout stage from Bermuda’s group, which included the top two Caribbean seeds Trinidad and Jamaica, the odds were heavily stacked against them.

But player-coach Tom Healy’s youthful side managed to pull off a major upset by beating the Reggae Warriors 17-12 to secure a spot in the quarter-finals where they faced Trinidad.

With a place at the Hong Kong Sevens up for grabs, Bermuda then gave the top seeds a huge fright, forcing the game into sudden death extra-time before eventually losing 17-12.

“We did much better than we expected. Pessimistically I didn’t give us a chance of reaching the knockout competition,” said Healy, who was coaching Bermuda at a tournament for the first time.

“Basically we needed to pull off an upset which we did by beating Jamaica to really put the cat among the pigeons.”

Healy said it would have been a huge fillip for Bermuda sevens rugby had they qualified for the Hong Kong Sevens — the smaller sided game’s premier tournament — but insisted he was proud of his team’s efforts.

“We went very close to going even a step further than what we did,” said the Irishman, whose team spent five months preparing for the Championships.

“But I have no complaints as the players far exceeded all expectations that I had.”

Healy hopes to continue as player-coach for the CASCO Games where Bermuda will be up against hosts Mexico, Barbados, Trinidad and Cayman Islands, plus three from Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Venezuela.

A slight concern for Bermuda will be that several of their key players such as Healy won’t be allowed to play in the Games as Olympic rules prohibit teams selecting expats.

“As far as I’m aware CASCO is governed by Olympic rules so the tournament is only for Bermudian passport holders,” said Healy, whose team recorded wins over British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, and Jamaica.

“That rules the expats out and therefore these voids have to filled by local players.

“It leaves us with a huge challenge.

“There were four players in the Championships squad who were expats and we don’t have the depth to fill four voids right now, so we have a lot of work to do.”

Healy also said funding would be a crucial factor in determining the long-term success of Bermuda’s sevens programme.

“We need to build in some continuity and start going way to tournaments to prepare for the CASCO Games. That brings additional headaches such as funding because we can’t just go away to these tournaments without it.

“Because CASCO is connected to the Olympics hopefully there’s is an avenue to get some Olympic funding.”