Sundaymail Editor
Tinashe Kusema
Deputy Sports Editor
IT might not rank as high as other more popular events such as the Super Bowl, NBA finals, or the FIFA World Cup, and it might not attract millions in viewership, but make no mistake, Rugby World Cup Sevens is indeed a big deal.
The iconic Cape Town Stadium in South Africa will be the host venue for the Rugby World Cup Sevens that runs from September 9 to 11.
A sell-out crowd is expected at the 64 000- seater stadium constructed for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and is the home of the HSBC Cape Town Sevens, which has attracted record-breaking crowds to the event over the years.
It has also hosted all three tests — and two tour matches — during the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 2021.
In February 2020, the Guinness World Record crowd for an exhibition tennis match of 51,954 was the stadium as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal took part in the match in Africa.
There is also the new “winner-takes-all” knockout format to the tournament in which the teams taking part in the tournament have been seeded based on points accrued across the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series of 2020 and 2022.
The men’s teams ranked from ninth to 24th will take part in a pre-round of 16, with the winners of those matches going on to play the top-eight seeds in the round of 16.
And it is here where Zimbabwe, making their sixth appearance since the competition’s inception back in 1993, come in.
The Cheetahs, as Zimbabwe’s senior men’s sevens’ team is known, will take on Canada on the opening day on Friday in the pre-round of 16, with the winner meeting France in the next stage. Cheetahs skipper Kudzai Mashawi is aware of the tough task that lies ahead of them but insists Zimbabwe are not overawed by the occasion.
“The boys are definitely ready for the competition, and we have been working hard on the few things that we think we didn’t do well in Chile and polishing up on the areas we did do well.
“The boys are quite excited too, as you know we will be going up against the very best sevens’ players in the world.
“We are a very young team, so, for most of us, we are going to play against players we have mostly looked up to as role models.
“It’s quite a big deal for us,” Mashawi said.
The Chile excursion, which Mashawi referred to, was last month’s World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series in Santiago.
There Zimbabwe were up against 11 other nations in the South American nation for the sole ticket to become a core team on the lucrative HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series next season.
However, coach Graham Kaulback’s men found the going tough.
Zimbabwe lost four matches against Tonga (17-26), Chile (0-24), Hong Kong (5-33) and Tonga again (26-28).
Their only win came via a 36-5 triumph over lowly Jamaica.
Although they failed in their bid for Core status, Mashawi has opted to look on the brighter side.
After all, the World Cup was always the end game. “Chile didn’t go according to the plan but we had boxes that we needed to tick and we did just that.
“I am very proud of how the boys played in Chile as the processes matter the most and once you get them right, results will start coming.
“We are a work in progress and the boys showed a lot of character during the Chile tournament,” he said.
Now that the Challenger series has come and gone, all the focus is on the World Cup.
The Cheetahs left for South Africa last week, with the team expected to wrap up their preparations for this weekend’s tournament on-site.
“Coming down here (South Africa) has been very important for us.
“It hasn’t been done recently and the goal is for the guys to get comfortable, get a feel of the atmosphere and more importantly, acclimatise.
“The trip will help get those nerves settled and get our mindset right as this is a very big tournament,” added Mashawi.
The areas the team intends to cover during this final lap of their preparations include the set-plays, rucking and scrummage as well as getting their structures right.
Mashawi revealed that they had been looking at some footage of Canada in order to formulate their game plan and plot for their opponents.
“We have prepared to the best of our abilities as we were in camp four weeks before the Chile tournament and regrouped again after that to prepare for the World Cup.
“Since we have arrived here in South Africa, we have been watching footage of how Canada plays and, in particular, their games at the Los Angeles Sevens.
“We have a pretty good game plan in place, coming up with strategies of how to defend against them and try to deprive them of space in attack.
“We hope to spread the ball, use our feet and try to find ways of discovering spaces which we can exploit,” he said.
Pre-round of 16 fixtures:
Ireland v Portugal
Canada v Zimbabwe
Samoa v Uganda
Scotland v Jamaica
Kenya v Tonga
Wales v South Korea
Hong Kong v Uruguay
Germany v Chile
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