adminIF at first you don’t succeed, pick yourself up and try again.
And that is exactly what the Zimbabwe Sevens rugby side will have to do next year after failing to make it as a World Series core member for the fourth successive year.
A 22-0 loss at the hands of rising giants and eventual winners Japan yesterday in the semi-final once again ended Zimbabwe’s dreams of being counted amongst the world’s top Sevens-playing nations.
But life was a bit tough for Zimbabwe this year at the Hong Kong tournament and from the beginning it never looked like they were going to make it in what proved to the most difficult group of the competition.
With competition rules stating that the two top teams from each of the groups and the two best runners-up would make it to the quarter-final, Pool E provided for three of the teams namely Zimbabwe, Hong Kong and Germany.
By half-time, Zimbabwe were trailing 17-0 – after three tries, two of them converted – to Japan and it never looked they would bounce back into the game as the Asians made life horrible for the Daniel Hondo-coached side, adding another unconverted touchdown for their victory.
On their way to the quarter-finals, Zimbabwe had finished second to Germany in their group to set up a date with Chile who they beat 19-5, a result that saw them making it to the semi-final stage.
Though Zimbabwe were unbeaten, they got off to a slow start that saw them draw 14-14 against Germany in their first game of the tournament, before a 35-5 hiding of Cayman Islands and rounding up their group games with finalists Hong Kong who they beat 19-7.
Last year Zimbabwe blew away their best ever chance of making it as a core member as they were leading Russia just before the buzzer but the Cheetahs kicked straight into the Russians territory where they took advantage of possession to place in the Zimbabwean in-goal, breaking the Cheetah’s hearts. – sportszone.co.zw
derick.khumalo