admin
from Harare.
I write this not as a coach but as a concerned citizen and parent.
Never before have I seen such blatant bias in a selection process.
At the end of the weekend there was a number of forlorn faces observable among the boys and helpless parents with no answers to give their sons.
It was obvious from the first game that any boy who was not connected to either the coaches or one of the bigger schools was doomed (and would not be) making the national team.
In the first game Harare A versus Harare B, Harare A was made up of exactly 15 players and had no substitutes while Harare B had 22 players, including substitutes.
In the first 20 minutes of the game, Harare B had the upper hand but the half-time score was 17-10 to Harare A.
Harare B still had a chance at this stage.
At half-time the coaches substituted seven Harare B players which totally upset their rhythm.
None of the Harare A players were substituted.
Subsequently, the Harare A side ran over the Harare B side and clearly looked like the better side.
The end result was 42-10 win to Harare A.
On the Saturday MCD A beat Harare A but surprisingly, in the final selected squad the majority of the starting 15 players were from the Harare A side.
Only one player from all the B teams was selected for the Craven Week team and he belonged to one of the bigger schools.
Based on my observations of last weekend’s proceedings, I therefore feel that the selection process is terribly flawed and in definite need of an overhaul as Zimbabwe is not fielding their best team.
Unless something drastic is done, we will never be able to compete at international level.
What happened to teams like Churchill or the much-talked about Mbare Academy?
Surely they could have, at least, had one player in the team.
As a layman I feel that there are a number of ways of improving the process.
Firstly, in the case of Harare A and B, seven of the A team players are players who made the last Craven Week squad so have had experience playing together.
The B team players became selfish hoping that they could get a big break that would make them be seen.
The selectors should have mixed A and B teams from different provinces so that they could get a true reflection of the players when put into a situation that they were not comfortable with.
Secondly, I feel that the process needs to be a little more scientific, that is, based on what the players have done, not who they are affiliated to.
Statistics of trys scored, or conversions made, assists and tackles are part of the tools that should be used in the selection process and video analysis would also provide a better reviewing process for the coaches to be fair enough on these young boys.
The Craven Week coach should never be a coach of a school first team because it is extremely difficult for any human to be impartial in that kind of set-up.
Thirdly, selection should be done over a longer period by scouts rather than on a specific day as the current approach does not take into account the fact that a player may be having a bad day.
Lastly, we should look at co-opting current and past national team players to be selectors so that they can watch the smaller teams’ games on any ordinary match-day.
This helps as the boys will be playing their natural game without stage fright or expectations of being selected for any provincial or national side.
Yours truly,
Bryan Paul.
Online Reporter