Cheetahs out of Dubai

quarter-final of the Hong Kong tournament.
So near and yet so far were the Cheetahs in their campaign for glory that they were not able to be among the top three sides in the second tire competition that was used as a quali­fier for core status.
Canada, Spain and Portugal were the three teams that managed to gain promotion, becoming the latest World Series core members joining the likes of Fiji, New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya and Australia.
This is the reason why the Cheetahs are not part of the Dubai tournament which they have, over the years, used as their traditional international sea­son-opener before travelling to South Africa for their second leg.
Cheetahs manager Bruce Hobson believes that being left out is a sign that they should work hard to be part of the elite Sevens rugby-playing nations, adding that they are going to do so starting with the World Cup preparations.
“Obviously we have to work hard if we are to be a core member of the Sev­ens series,” said the former Zimbabwe Rugby Union president.
Instead, Russia have been invited to take part in Dubai as they will be host­ing next year’s Sevens World Cup in Moscow, and this is expected top give them a feel of the international game.
“With the view that Russia are going to host the World Cup next year, they have been invited to Dubai and also because of the fact that they are part of Euro and Middle East zone,” added Hobson.
However, Zimbabwe will start their international season with the Port Elizabeth leg of the series in South Africa that had traditionally been their second leg but the Cheetahs have another chance to prove their worth next year.
They will get another chance of becoming one of the core members after notification from the IRB that more teams will qualify for the biggest Sevens series in the world as core teams.
Over the past few years, the Chee­tahs have gradually been making progress on the World Series where they are now taking part in five of the nine tournaments as they travel to Dubai, South Africa, Hong Kong, Glasgow and London.
It is in Europe during the back-to-back Glasgow and London tourna­ments that the Cheetahs hope to make it second time luck.
“I feel that is going to be much eas­ier for us to qualify as a core team next year because there will be eight teams fighting for the three spots because last time we had tough competition against teams like Portugal,” added Hobson.
The qualifiers will be held in May next year during the Glasgow-London tournaments and the Cheetahs have the advantage that most of their play­ers would have spent a long time together.
With the plan that the Cheetahs will be in a professional academy set-up as they are set to get six moths contracts between January and June, Hobson hopes that the conditioning and focus will be great.
The contracts will not only be offered to the current crop of Sevens players as the technical team led by coach Gilbert “Gidza” Nyamutsamba is also looking at the future.
From Port Elizabeth, the Cheetahs will then travel to Hong Kong next year where the top five non-core members will qualify to play at the London-Glasgow back-to-back tour­naments and these will be joined by regional winners to bring the number of teams to 12.
And it is here that they will have another chance to become a core member and if they qualify, they will have a chance to play all the games in the World Series, joining South Africa and Kenya as the only African teams in the grouping.