ZRU revel in rugby fiesta
IN a rare fortnight for rugby, the country enjoyed a huge fiesta of the game with all key facets of the sport being serviced.
It started with the country hosting the Africa Rugby Barthes Trophy for the Under20 teams at Harare Sports Club.
Defending champions Zimbabwe, however, came a cropper in the final, surrendering the title to Kenya who beat them 28-13 to proceed to represent Africa at the World Junior Trophy.
As the curtain came down on the Barthes Trophy tourney, which also featured Namibia and Tunisia, the Mwana Schools festival burst into life at Prince Edward that featured Epworth’s Domboramwari, Nhowe and Dzivarasekwa.
Across town while St John’s College hosted the Derby Day competition that had the likes of Lomagundi, Peterhouse, St George’s, Falcon, Hillcrest and Kyle.
The senior national teams — the Sables for the men and the Lady Sables — then brought a fitting end to the Mwana festival when they featured in Test matches against Zambia with both sides winning over Zimbabwe’s northern neighbours.
The two-week fiesta has left the Zimbabwe Rugby Union purring and looking to use similar events to further develop the game across the country.
Last month the ZRU partnered with their Chitungwiza affiliate to stage a successful Southern City invitational at Damview hotel and leisure centre.
ZRU president Aaron Jani said yesterday they would continue with their thrust to take rugby to more centres.
Jani said while the Sables would now shift focus to their upcoming Africa Cup assignment, the union would not take the foot off the pedal in spreading the game and providing a platform for more players to express their talents.
“It has been a very exciting week, we had two big tournaments.
“We had the Mwana Group festival at PE, it was very exciting to see the development and the enthusiasm from schools that had stopped playing rugby who came through and participated, so this tournament was mainly focused on the development of rugby and it was very exciting and very well-supported,’’ Jani said.
“Then we also had the Derby Day, which was focused on performance, the more competitive teams in the schools and it was good to see the level of rugby being played, the quality of the rugby being played and it was exciting to see the level of support that the Derby Day was given.