Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Rugby Union (ZRU) vice-president Martin Shone says they have learnt lessons from the Lady Sables Rugby Africa Women’s Cup experience after facing South Africa and Namibia.
The women’s rugby team moved four places up the World Rugby women’s rankings from 49th to 45th after the two matches.
The Lady Sables were annihilated 108-0 by the Springbok Women in their opening match and saved face with a 72-0 whitewash of Namibia in their next game.
Shone believes the humiliation by South Africa is not enough to rule out the women’s team from competing with the best.
“In the first game against the Lady Springboks, our side did not come out of their shell and we were probably shocked.
The girls played their normal game in the second encounter and got a comfortable win.
When you look at the game that we played last year against the Springboks sevens’ side and lost by about 40 points, we closed the gap in our next game against Uganda, who beat us by a narrow score line.
“When you win, you normally don’t learn, but when you lose you learn.
From the first game that we played, we learnt lessons and put those lessons into practice in the second game and we won comfortably.
We polished our act and managed to prove what we can do.
We will look for more competitions so that they keep in shape and continuously get quality competition, as this is the only way the side can improve,” said Shone.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Under-20 rugby team will return to international action as part of an exciting International Series to be played in Canada from August 9-24.
They will face Canada, Uruguay and Chile in the four-nation tournament supported by the game’s global governing body, World Rugby. – @innocentskizoe
Online Reporter