admintournament in Durban, South Africa, in December last year where they played and convincingly beat their South African opponents.
But yesterday they were left shell-shocked after they were handed two heavy defeats by HC Eynatten-Raeren from Belgium and Sweden’s top junior club side Lugi HF 2.
Howard High School first took to the courts at 9:40am yesterday to take on HC Eynatten-Raeren and the Belgians took them to the cleaners, spanking them 33-8.
They went to the short breather trailing 2-12 before the torture continued in the second period in which the tall HC Eynatten-Raeren players continued to run rings around them, planting 16 more shots into the net.
After this massacre, Howard High were hoping to redeem themselves in their second match of the day in Group Six of the boys Under-18 section of this tournament against Sweden’s Lugi HF 2.
But the script did not change for the Bindura-based schoolboys as they came short again in this match, going down 32-8 in another one-sided match.
Howard High coach Bruce Mufandaedza and the team’s pivot player Edmond Tembani felt that lack of exposure of playing at this level of competition contributed to their two heavy defeats.
“I think this is a good experience for the guys because we now know exactly where we stand in terms of our standard of handball.
“In came short in defence, our guys were a little bit shorter and they couldn’t match their opponents in height.
“In offense, our guys lost patience because they were playing against these tall opponents who were just physically stronger than them and this forced my players to shoot from a distance.
“In the second match against Lugi, we really tried our best but inexperience at this level of competition also weighed heavily against us as we were left exposed in too many areas of this game.
“We need to play more of these tough matches inorder for us to improve our play,” Mufandaedza said.
His pivot player, 16-year-old Tembani, also felt that they were still way behind their European counterparts.
‘’Our play improved in the second match but it all boils down to exposure. Here in Europe, the players start playing handball at around eight years old and they just grow with the sport in their blood whereas I only started playing handball when I was in Form One.
“So, you can see the difference and this saw us losing heavily in our first two matches at this tournament.
“The other thing I noticed today is that we are playing against club sides who have been playing together for quite a long time while we came here as a school handball team which doesn’t play together on a regular basis back home in Zimbabwe,” said Tembani, who scored four goals against Lugi HF 2.
Alphios Magiya, the Zimbabwe Handball Federation secretary-general, echoed the same sentiments.
“The guys made a lot of mistakes because they were playing basic handball which lacked enough technique and tactics, and this was all because of lack of exposure at this level of competition.
Online Reporter