Poor execution cost Young Sables

YOUNG Sables coach Brandon Brider is not a happy man following his side’s poor performance that was characterised by poor execution of basic skills, leading to a 54-24 defeat to Pacific Ocean Islanders Samoa in the World Rugby Under-20 Trophy opener at Harare Sports Club on Tuesday. “Man for man against Samoa were always going to be smaller given their physicality, they looked mentally better but we were not that (mentally prepared).“We made a lot of handling errors, kicking errors and that put us at the back foot,” said the former Young Sables back-liner.

Thirty minutes into the game, Zimbabwe were trailing 26-0 through four tries, two of them converted, but it was in the last minute of the first half that the hosts scored a try through hooker Tinotenda Musasanura with Shingi Katsvere getting the bonus points off his boot.

Zimbabwe’s mid-field was troubled as fly-half Tadiwa Gochera was out of sorts and of the three restarts he took, twice he kicked directly into touch, unnecessarily giving away possession to Samoa and this prompted the change of kicker to Katsvere.

Scrummy Ernest Mudzengerere had his fair share of errors as a try went begging after he was unable to take a pass from a short line-out move close to the Samoan line.

Going into the break with a reason to believe though trailing 28-6, Zimbabwe came back into the second half with zeal and were the first to touch down as Kudzai Munangi’s try two minutes into this period and substitute flanker Daniel Nyamugama also crossed the whitewash.

With a new points system under trial, tries were increased in value to six, penalties reduced to two points and penalty tries will be worth eight-points, with no conversion necessary in a bid to promote running rugby.

Zimbabwe’s next game is on Saturday when they take on Uruguay at midday in the second game of the day with the Pacific Ocean derby getting the day underway as Fiji and Samoa face off at 10am. Group B games will see debutants Spain, who beat Hong Kong on Tuesday, taking on Namibia, who upset the US in the first game, at 2pm before the main clash of the day between the US and Hong Kong at 4pm.

— The Herald.