Online Reporter
Tinashe Kusema
Zimpapers Sports Hub
SIMPLE, determined and decisive. Takudzwa Matsvimbo does not say the words for effect.
He offers them quietly, almost as a personal code, a way of keeping his world ordered in a sport that rarely is.
At 19, the Zimbabwe Junior Sables captain is careful not to dress ambition in noise.
He says he is a rugby player, not an athlete, and he leaves that thought hanging, unfinished, for another day.
For now, his journey fits neatly into those three words. Simple in its aim. Determined in its pursuit. Decisive in the choices it demands. Matsvimbo wants to be on a plane to Australia in 2027, part of Zimbabwe’s Rugby World Cup squad, and he speaks of that goal with the calm of someone who has already pictured it clearly.
Zimbabwe’s qualification for the 2027 World Cup did more than lift the senior Sables. It shifted something deeper for a generation coming through.
Matsvimbo felt it immediately.
“Zimbabwe qualifying for the World Cup last year had a huge effect on me and almost every rugby player in Zimbabwe,” he said. “It opened my eyes to the possibilities that lie in wait for all of us if we continue on our current paths.”
Before that moment, the ceiling felt low. School rugby, a handful of regional tournaments, then uncertainty. The sense that effort might never meet opportunity.
Matsvimbo explains it without bitterness, just clarity.
“Prior to that, we thought playing rugby in Zimbabwe was a dead end. You play schools rugby, graduate, maybe you have a Zambia series or this tournament, and after that you don’t really get that far,” he said.
The World Cup changed the maths. It made the idea of progression real rather than imagined. For Matsvimbo, it turned discipline into a promise.
“Once the Sables qualified, it opened my eyes to what I could achieve if I work, keep my head down and grow. Then I could make it into that World Cup squad,” he said.
He is not waiting for permission.
Like many young players with international ambitions, Matsvimbo has already begun testing himself against the standard he hopes to reach. The former Lomagundi Bisons skipper has spoken to Sables coach Piet Benade and joined a few training and gym sessions with the senior side, less to impress than to observe.
“Yes, 100 percent, I am planning on trying out for the team,” he said. “I started training with the Sables after the Rugby Africa Cup. I went to the gym with them and did a few field and gym sessions, just working and learning.”
The sessions were not about belonging. They were about understanding.
“The goal was to learn and take notes on how they play, absorb as much as I can, then come back prepared,” he said. “There is a lot of pressure and competition at senior level, but I will be ready when the time comes.”
That future target does not distract him from the responsibility already on his shoulders.
As the new captain of the Zimbabwe Under-20 team, Matsvimbo carries expectations shaped by history and recent disappointment.
The Junior Sables are preparing for the 2026 Barthes Trophy, now confirmed for Uganda in August after early uncertainty around the tournament’s status. Under 20 coach Shaun De Souza has already begun laying the groundwork.
Part of that preparation included a demanding tour to the UAE for the World Schools Rugby Festival in Abu Dhabi, where Matsvimbo travelled as one of the senior figures in the squad.
The results were harsh. Across seven matches involving the Junior Sables and the High Performance team, Zimbabwe managed just one victory.
The Junior Sables lost all four of their games, while the High Performance side claimed a single win against Uganda’s USRA select before falling twice more.
On paper, it reads like failure. Matsvimbo does not see it that way.
“It was an interesting tournament, to say the least,” he said. “We didn’t perform to the best of our ability, but we learnt a lot about ourselves and the game as a whole.”
The value, he insists, was in the exposure. Different countries. Different styles. Different demands.
“There were teams from so many parts of the world and so many styles of rugby. It became an opportunity to learn and absorb as much as we could. We spoke to players and coaches from different schools and countries and saw what we could take from them,” he said.
He believes cohesion arrived too late on the tour, but when it did, the picture changed. The group began to understand each other, to settle into shared patterns, to glimpse what they could become.
That sense of unfinished business feeds directly into August.
The Barthes Trophy has been unkind to Zimbabwe in recent seasons, and for Matsvimbo, those moments still sit close.
Kenya wrested the title away in the 2024 final with a 28-13 win. A year later, Namibia ended a long wait for silverware with a crushing victory over Tunisia.
For the Junior Sables captain, 2024 remains the deepest cut.
“Losing the Barthes Trophy to Kenya was arguably one of the lowest moments of my career,” he said. “It opened my eyes to what simple mistakes can do in pressure games.”
He does not shy away from detail. Knock-ons. Forward passes. Errors that seem small until they are punished.
“We made too many unforced errors and Kenya punished us. Simple mistakes can decide a final where the margin for error is very thin.”
There is no grand promise of redemption, only resolve.
“Hopefully this time around we bounce back better and reclaim the trophy.”
Simple. Determined. Decisive. The words return, not as a slogan, but as a rhythm. Matsvimbo understands that Australia is still far away, that August comes first, that leadership is measured in response as much as in results.
His journey is still being written, but the direction is clear. One tournament at a time. One lesson absorbed. One flight imagined, waiting somewhere in the distance.
