Rugby academy dates pushed

Paul Munyuki Sports Reporter
THE launch of the Zimbabwe Rugby Union national junior academy that was expected this year has been pushed forward by another two years following financial and logistical problems faced by the local rugby mother body.
Last year, ZRU president John Falkenberg indicated that they had plans of opening a junior national academy that will have ties with local tertiary and universities towards the end of this year but according to the new projections, the academy will open its doors at the end of 2015 latest. ZRU vice-president, Colleen de Jong, told The Herald that they did not have the capacity to start running the academy this year but she believes latest by the end of 2015 the academy would have started operations.

“It is important that we have that academy because we are losing a lot of talent to other countries yet if we get our academy running we will be able to retain more of the junior talent that we have in this country.

“But we have been faced with some problems as well so the academy will only open at a later date because such a project needs a lot of financial support as well but I cannot give an exact date as to when that will be up and running.

“I think latest we should say end of 2015,” said the former Young Sables administration manager.
Falkenberg had earlier indicated that the academy will be taking care of the players’ educational needs as they are planning to have an academy similar to those in professional rugby-playing nations like South Africa and in Europe.

“For a start we will go with three academies, one each in Bulawayo, Harare and Kwekwe, and this project will be headed by Australian rugby legend David Campese as the academy director.

“The whole point of us having such kind of a project is to try and minimise the amount of talent we lose to other countries because here we will also be working with tertiary and universities in the country so that the players in the academies also get academic qualifications.
“This is pretty much a move to develop our own talent locally, bridge the gap between schools rugby, club level and national teams because we are losing most of the talent after high school,” said Falkenberg.