adminA serious injury forced Mhende out of the game in August 2010 when he suffered a broken leg in the final of the Castel Sevens rugby tournament in Zambia where Zimbabwe beat Northern Region 19-12 to lift the Cup.
This was the last time Mhende played the game, before making a return at the beginning of the local rugby league a few weeks ago and on Saturday he was part of the Red Lions side that lost 21-26 to Old Georgians.
With the Sables national trial game on this weekend, Mhende yesterday told The Herald that he will not be interested in playing for the national teams – be it the Sables or the Cheetahs – adding that the Castle Sevens final was his last international.
“I have retired from international rugby and I will just be concentrating on club rugby and if I am to be chosen for the national selection squads, I am going to opt out and I guess this means no more international rugby for me,” said the Sports Club winger.
Mhende spent more than a year in crutches before he was advised to take up coaching last year and was the assistant coach of the Sports Club second string side that plies their trade in the Metro Rugby League.
And to show the coaching potential in him, he took charge of the unbeaten Zimbabwe Sevens Under-16 side that he ably led to win all their five games at the Middelburg Sevens tournament on their way to lifting the title.
But the 30-year-old’s passion was not in coaching and he worked hard through the re-habilitation programme to ensure he returned to the playing field.
And after 33 months of watching on the sidelines, he finally did.
“It was difficult for me to just leave the game through injury because I just want to leave (playing) the game on my own terms.
“My first season out of the game (2011) was very difficult because I had to adjust from being a player to watching from the terraces which was very difficult for me and to make matters worse in that season we lost to OGs.
“Honestly, I think if I had been involved it could have been a different result.
“The following season (last year) I spoke to (Sports Club coach Nsikelelo Sibanda) Sykes and Supa (Cyprian Mandenge now with Old Hararians) and they encouraged me to think about coaching and that is how I was assigned to assist with HSC 2nd team.
“Believe me it was difficult trying to coach coming from a playing background,” said the former Zimbabwe international.
However, Mhende added that his biggest battle was to try and regain fitness.
“Regaining fitness was difficult because after spending a lot of time seated it was proving difficult to start that process again and Sykes was the one who encouraged me to take training sessions with the guys.
“During the re-hab days I spent the whole year working in the gym, concentrating on my leg but doing that was also difficult because I was working alone, pushing myself with a cautious approach because I was not sure of what would happen to my leg.
“Even when I am playing it’s always difficult when I think of kicking the ball because the first thing that comes to mind is the leg incident but I am also working on that challenge.”
Mhende added that his side’s weekend loss to former champions Old Georgians was a painful one which brought back memories of their defeat two years ago.
Poor communication between Mhende and his winger, after winning a line out in their 22-yard, resulted in Old Georgians getting the try that separated the two sides.
“It was very disappointing for me because the last time we lost to OGs they won the league but last weekend’s game felt worse, our forwards were a bit out of form and as the backline we can never get to run if our forwards are retreating all the time
“As a team we relaxed thinking we had won the game, we should have applied more pressure because the OGs forwards were a bit tired and we failed to provide our backline with the ball,” said Mhende.
Online Reporter