adminPaul Munyuki Harare Bureau
THE Zimbabwe Rugby Union have won the right to host the 2016 Under-20 Junior World Rugby Trophy tournament, four months after they made an application to World Rugby becoming only the second African country to do so in the history of the competition.
Kenya are the only African country to have hosted the tournament when they staged the 2009 event. But after putting up a strong bid Zimbabwe will now have their chance to stage the competition, throwing a huge lifeline to the Sables who last week had failed to qualify for the tournament.
ZRU president John Falkenberg broke the news in a statement yesterday.
“I am very pleased to announce that the 2nd tier (junior) World Rugby Trophy will be held in Zimbabwe in 2016. I thank World Rugby for their confidence in awarding the hosting rights of this prestigious tournament to our country Zimbabwe. I would like to thank all those in the union who worked hard on this bidding process namely (the) director of rugby (Brighton Chivandire) the chief executive (Colleen de Jong) and the general manager (Sifiso Made) and my vice-president (Nyararai) Sibanda,” read part of the statement. But the hosting of the event is not the only good news as the package comes with the bonus that the Zimbabwe Under-20 side has qualified by virtue of hosting despite the fact that they fell in the qualifiers to Namibia a few weeks ago.
World Rugby competitions operations manager Simon Kibble was in the country early May to assess the Zimbabwean conditions and environment and held a string of meetings with the Sport and Recreation Commission, ZRU and a number of other stakeholders and also inspected facilities likely to be used for the next edition of the games.
Kibble also visited health facilities that included Avenues Clinic, hotels and playing venues and also took time to watch schools rugby during the Dairibord Schools Festival at Prince Edward in the company of ZRU chief executive de Jong.
According to ZRU general manager Made, Kibble believes Zimbabwe has some of the best facilities, good enough to host the annual tournament.
“He was impressed with the facilities we have here he went to see the health and medical facilities we’ll be using, hotels and proposed match venues and he hinted that he was happy with what we’ve exhibited.
“The dates of the tournament are yet to be set though but once all that has gone through, we’ll know of the time the tournament will take place,” said Made.
The Zimbabwe Under-20 side has not qualified for the JWRT in the last four years, during which old enemies Namibia have dominated them. The Namibians were also part of this year’s edition of the tournament in Portugal. Zimbabwe will enjoy the privilege of playing at the tournament as hosts after they failed to qualify on the field of play, an extra-time 34-32 defeat at the hands of Namibia ending their hopes.
The two sides had been tied 27-27 at the end of regulation time. Other countries that have previously staged the tournament are Russia in 2010, Georgia in 2011 with the United States of America taking care of the 2012 edition. Last year the event was hosted by Japan while Chile took charge of the 2013 edition.
Made believes that Zimbabwe has the capacity to host the global tournament as they have hosted the Junior Africa Cup thrice in the last five years.
“We’ve hosted the Junior Africa Cup twice before, we’re hosting it again this year and this gives us enough reason to believe that we’re capable of hosting the JWRT. The fact that we’ve applied to host the tournament means we’ve the capacity to do so.
“We know we can do better than other countries that have hosted the event before so at the moment we just have to wait for deliberations at World Rugby level and I’m sure after this year’s JWRT in Portugal we’ll know of our position,” added the former Harare Province chairman.
Online Reporter