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Tadious Manyepo in CAPE TOWN, South Africa
THEY came, they fought, they experienced and their gallantly ensured the Zimbabwean badge retained its dignity.
And it’s now time for the Gems, who finished 13th in the just-ended Netball World Cup held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, to return home.
After watching the one-sided final pitting eventual champions Australia and England on Sunday night, the Zimbabweans are scheduled to fly back home this evening.
They are expected to land at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport at 7pm.
But before they can make their way from their Cresta Grande Hotel at the heart of Cape Town to the Cape Town International Airport, they will be treated to a red-carpet farewell by their all-weather partners, funeral services company Zororo-Phumulani.
The latter have been there through thick and thin for over a year now helping out the Gems.
They delivered some personal medical equipment on the eve of the Netball World Cup while dangling a 50 000 Rand carrot to motivate the Gems to win their opener against Australia.
Although the Zimbabweans offered little resistance to the powerhouse and eventually exited the first preliminary stages without a victory, they would collect themselves in the second preliminaries to clip 13th place in the 16-team competition.
And Zororo-Phumulani have set aside over US$2 000 to be shared amongst the team as a thank you token before the Gems leave South Africa today.
Zororo-Phumulani Western Cape Regional manager Admire Murefu said his company was committed to ensuring the girls are always motivated for the next assignment.
“As Zororo-Phumulani, we are alive to the fact that our senior national netball players have dependants who look up to them.
“We have set aside a cash token to thank each of them for representing our country with so much honour,” said Murefu.
“We all wanted them to finish in the top four as was their ambition going into the tournament.
“But we know that this is a World Cup and the stage is always tough.
“You will agree with me that they did very well after recovering from their early disappointment in the first preliminaries.
“They fought for the badge and they return home with their dignity very much intact.
“It’s not a joke for a team to finish in the 13th position in a World Cup.
“After all, just qualifying for the World Cup is a very big achievement on its own.
“So even if they had not finished 13th, we were still going to honour them.
“We will host a red carpet event to honour all of them. They should aim even higher going forward”.
The Gems started the World Cup campaign on a low note losing all their Pool A matches to Australia, Fiji and Tonga.
That effectively relegated them from contesting for the title, instead fighting for the uppermost place in the bottom four.
The Ropafadzo Mutsauki’s charges responded well although they had lost the first match in the bottom four to Barbados whom they would put to the slaughter room when punching them hands down in the final of the 13th place play off last Friday.
The Gems will have to quickly recover from the tiresome global show-piece as they start preparing for the African Championships coming up in Uganda in three months’ time.
Online Reporter