adminThe Zimbabwe Under-20 finished seventh in the Junior World Rugby Trophy tournament on Saturday after beating Russian 22-10 for their first win in eight games.
It was only their second in a dozen game since 2010 in Russia when they beat Papua New Guinea — also in the seventh place play-off.
“From here we go straight into our preparations for the Junior Africa Cup, we have no time to rest and as soon as I get to Zimbabwe I will be busy with the
Zimbabwe Under-18 team that will take part at the Craven Week rugby festival (in South Africa) next week,” said Murambiwa.
“We have to take the Craven Week side very seriously because they are the main feeder team to the Under-19 team that takes part in the Junior Africa Cup we are hosting in August.
“We hope that we will able to retain Nico de Villiers as our strength and conditioning coach so that his work starts right away instead of waiting till March (next year) like we did this year,”
Zimbabwe lost all their three group matches in the JWRT tournament that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, over the past two weeks but they managed a win in the last game — a seventh place play-off.
Zimbabwe beat Russia 22-1.
After having looked set to win their first game against Japan, only to lose it in the very action, the Young Sables never recovered from that three-point defeat as they fell against Georgia and Canada in the Pool B games.
And, just like last year, Georgia were responsible for handing the Young Sables the biggest defeat as Brighton Chivandire’s boys could only afford just a converted touchdown and conceded 43 points.
It was in this game that they lost three of their key players — the experienced trio of captain Sean Linfield and front rower Ian Muza who suffered ankle injures and winger Justin Coles who had a concussion.
Both the Zimbabwe defence and attack were exposed and this also became their biggest defeat at the tournament.
Zimbabwe were missing the services of slippery utility backliner, Victor “Jackie” Mushoriwa, who had had been unable to start, let alone play, due to a groin injury.
He finally wore the Number 15 jersey in the last game against Canada with James Forrester being moved to fly-half in place of Linfield while a host of junior players were also introduced.
Most of the junior players who played in this game, and the play-off game against Russia, will be part of the Under-19 side come August.
Zimbabwe showed strength in attack, scoring 44 points past the Canadians, but the side wasn’t able to balance between attack and the defence, missing tackles, not going so low in contact and in the end letting in 65 points.
Having set a target of a top-six finish prior to the tournament, Zimbabwe needed to win, at least, one group game.
However, in the positional play-off against Russia, the Young Sables managed to smile after a 22-10 win with all their points coming in the first half.
Russia got their points from unconverted tries.
Front rower, Andires Van Heerden, was stretchered straight to the theatre for an arm operation after this game
But Murambiwa feels they have drawn a number of lessons both from the defeats and in the win against Russia.
“Very positive and the fact that we had nine players eligible for next year’s tournament can only put us on a strong footing,” said Murambiwa.
“We also tried new leadership in Takudzwa Chieza and Joshua Smallbones and both players showed promise.
“The win against Russia in the last game can only make the boys stronger and I feel that in as much as we did not reach our set target of a top six finish, we improved from last year where we finished eighth in the tournament.”
Online Reporter