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A POORLY prepared Zimbabwe national sevens rugby team left for Tunisia early this week for this year’s Africa Cup.
Coach Gilbert Nyamutsamba’s men were meant to have started a training camp last week on Tuesday but as of last Saturday, he was still holed up in Bulawayo.
The Africa Cup is taking place on Saturday and Sunday.
As a result of lack of planning, the Cheetahs will head to North Africa without skipper Hilton Mudariki and Boyd Rouse who are based in the United Kingdom as well as Shayne Makombe who plays club rugby in France.
However, foreign based players, Biselele Tshamala, Riaan O’Neill, Connor Prichard, Stephan Hunduza, Tafadzwa Chitokwindo and Ngoni Chibuwe will be available for the Cheetahs in Tunisia.
The Cheetahs recently missed an opportunity not only to defend their title at the Maseru Sevens in Lesotho at the end of last month but also lost out on getting some game time ahead of the Africa Cup.
Zimbabwe Rugby Union (ZRU) president, Aaron Jani said they could not afford to send the Cheetahs on some of the tournaments since the shorter format of the game is played for most parts of the year with the bulk of the players having to be flown in from their foreign bases. His suggested remedy is using locally-based athletes for some of the competitions to reduce the expenses.
“The problem with sevens is that they play throughout the year, that’s too expensive, most of the players have to be flown in for tournaments. We have to change the model to use locally-based players, there are too many resources required,’’ said Jani.
In 2017, Zimbabwe were runners up at the Africa Cup where they lost 10-7 to host nation Uganda in the final with the result still good enough to send the Cheetahs to the Sevens Rugby World Cup in San Francisco, United States of America in July this year.
Online Reporter