Online Reporter
In a period when a nation has managed a rare World Cup Finals qualification, leadership could be sitting on top of every hill. So why is the Union hardly visible?
Tinashe Kusema-Zimpapers Sports Hub
PADDY ZHANDA is a man with a plan!
For all the criticism the Zimbabwe Rugby Union Interim Management Committee (IMC) has been getting for their lack of visibility, their board has been in the lab silently going about their business and it goes way beyond the 2027 Rugby World Cup.
“One of the core principles that we really stand by as the IMC (Interim Management Committee) is that we able to separate the game of rugby from the business of rugby,” said Zhanda, on the board’s alleged lack of visibility.
“It may not go down well with people, but I don’t really involve myself to every level of rugby detail.
“We are very adamant that the head of high performance must be the bridge between the business side, which is us, and the game side, which is the technical side.
“So, if the technical guy says to us that our plan is this and that and it is working well, we trust their word.
“I may not be intimately familiar to say on a day-to-day basis what is happening at certain levels or every level of the sport but I am in the loop on everything.
“We keep that firewall in place for a reason,” he said.
As it pertains to the business side of rugby, Zhanda has since revealed that there is an active plan to resource and revamp the domestic game.
He was speaking at the launch of the official countdown to the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia held in the capital last week.
The ceremony was held to bridge the gap between the union and the corporate world as Zhanda and his board target raising funds for the Sables’ Nations Cup and Rugby World Cup campaigns next year.
“I am very encouraged by the number of people who showed up,” he said.
“We have been doing a lot of work to reach out to the corporate world and, I think, the function was a litmus test of how well those engagements have gone.
“We have obviously got a lot of work still to do, but we’re feeling very energised about getting the campaign off on a good footing,” he said.
One of the IMC’s key objectives, from day one, was always to leave the sport on better footing than they found it and building a strong domestic league is one route to do that.
“I think if we look objectively at what’s happened to Zimbabwe rugby, we started failing internally before external failures happened,” he said.
“And what I mean by that is we really have to start by strengthening domestic action.
“We must have a substantive league where all the best players in the country are represented and that will be the base of our pyramid.
“I think once we get a high level of domestic rugby, that will be the engine room of everything else that follows.
“Without a good domestic rugby, you can’t fill a proper Sables team outside of your international window.
“This is where it started strangling our fixtures.
“We want to have the confidence to call our local boys Sables, and, therefore, outside of the July and November windows, we should be able to field a competitive team and come up with competitive fixtures,” said Zhanda.
A buy-in from the local rugby community will obviously be key, and the IMC have been working behind the scenes to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page.
“We have got plans which I don’t want to pre-empt too much but, essentially, we have to gather the best players that we have in the country and share them amongst the teams we consider to be the best in the country.
“This that then become the base of our pyramid.
“I’m a bit hesitant to go into detail on said plan because I still have to engage the clubs and players to make sure that everyone’s on board.
“However, the thinking is that once we set that base for domestic rugby then we press on from there.
“The best coaches must be coaching at each of these clubs and they will be assisted by the best next level coaches,” he said.
The union held a mock project last year with the Grid Cup which divided the Sables’ extended squad into four equally competitive teams.
The project was a huge success with the four franchise teams exhibiting four weeks of competitive rugby.
“We had a similar set-up with the Grid Cup last year and there is still room for the tournament going forward,” he said.
“Now, imagine a league with eight teams, which gets funnelled into a franchise system of four teams (Grid Cup), which then gets funnelled further into the Sables red and green.
“You can see how that funnel is just constantly pushing the best players to the top.
“Once you are at Sables’ red and green, you now have your core base of players (contracted players) and the foreign-based players then come in to supplement the squad.
“However, none of that can happen if that domestic league doesn’t anchor everything.
“On the flip side, once we have a competitive domestic league we then have a product that we can offer partners.
“No one wants to watch or invest into a league where one team beats another 110-0.
“It’s not good for the teams, fans and partners.
“But when we can offer our local partners a good product, which is competitive rugby, then we can actually start to demand value out of them, and then the system starts getting energised with resources,” he said.
Zhanda said that the union does have what he termed as “an eye-watering figure” it will take to bankroll the project but opted to keep it closer to his vest.
“We do know what our plan is going to cost and that is why it was to hold the launch and make sure that we do our part.
“We obviously want the assistance of government to resource us, but we can’t go to government empty-handed.
“However, If we say to them that this is what we have done, this is what we have managed to raise, and we have a shortfall that would want you to assist us, I think that’s a much more palatable issue. “It’s part of the building blocks of what we’re trying to do,” he said.
