adminJeffrey Murimbechi Sports Correspondent
DAIRIBORD Zimbabwe is the new title sponsor of Zimbabwe’s largest schools rugby festival, which has been known as the Cottco Rugby Festival for the last 15 years. This was announced at the Zimbabwe Schools Rugby annual meeting at Prince Edward yesterday. Prince Edward school headmaster Agrippa Sora said Cottco will now be involved as a subsidiary sponsor at the 16th edition of the tournament. The tournament will take place from May 5-10 so that it does not coincide with major events in Harare such as Hifa.
The tournament is one of the largest schools rugby festivals in the world.
It will be reduced from the 184 schools, who took part last year, to 150 schools.
Thirty four schools were booted out because of non-compliance to their terms of agreement such as fulfilling of fixtures, age cheating and not playing rugby after the festival.
Every year teams from the SADC region take part in the event and two Namibian teams have shown interest and event organisers hope to include a South African side.
Delegates yesterday agreed that age cheating and doping should be fought vigorously.
Under-16 players are only allowed to play one year at that level and schools were discouraged against prematurely introducing players to the age group.
Each player will be registered with the Zimbabwe Rugby Union’s new schools database which will get uploaded from the information coming from the vetting process.
The ZRU hope to use the database to monitor and keep track of players’ development.
Festival director Sebastian Garikayi said committee will not compromise on the requirement for coaches to have an IRB Rugby Ready certificate, along with a Level One coaching certificate, for them to sit on the bench.
According to the ZRU, only Mbare Academy is accredited with them and they have been given the go-ahead, if the organising committee invites them, to be part of the tournament again this year. No decision was taken on Mabvuku academy’s application to compete in the tournament.
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