admincomeback where they scored 24 points, to turn around the tables against the fancied Saints who were leading 12-0 at half time.
But George’s only managed two penalties in the second half to take their points tally to 18 as Mbare turned on the screws, got their act together and with a clean ball to the backline dominated the second half.
It was through the heroics of winger Brandon Chari on the left that Mbare touched down for the first time in the George’s in goal from a scrum after the Saints had fouled right after their first scrum and it was the wing who scored to make it 5-12.
Munashe Kamunda, who scored a brace of tries, tormented the Georges defence was the second player to touch down for Mbare before Tinashe Chibondo added the third for the “All Blacks”.
Mbare Academy have been nicknamed the All Blacks because of their black playing strip and their famous haka pore-match ritual – just like New Zealand. Chibondo’s try was converted by scrummy Pride Nyameni who had a total of four points to his name but things went tough for St George’s in the latter stages of the game and it was Kamunda again in control and he scored their last try right before the final minute.
This is not the first time that Mbare have caused upsets at the festival as they also beat St George’s and Falcon College at last year’s edition and it is for this reason that they became crowd-pullers yesterday, stealing the limelight from the senior games. Kamunda said they almost lost hope when they went into the break without scoring and 12 points behind adding that despite their small frames and body size, they were determined to win.
“We are very happy that we won the game because it was a really a tough affair. Our working together helped us in the second half because at one stage we thought that we were beaten and were going to lose the game.
“But it was good because we never lost hope and in the second we felt it was high time for us to show them that although we were small in size we are still hard to beat,” said Kamunda. Mbares’ second match will be against Peterhouse tomorrow before they take on the hosts Prince Edward on the final day of the games on Saturday. Mbare Academy coach, Victor Pekani, believes they deserved the win after training hard with mountain runs in Chishawasha.
“We deserved a win, we have been training hard, we went to Chishawasha and the boys trained hard with mountain runs so their hard work has paid off. One good thing that I liked was their confidence and they showed team work, they were smaller in size but they ran fast and exhibited good skill and capitalised on what we we got in the second half.”
Online Reporter