Rugby more than just a game

Noddy Kanyangarara
HENRY Blaha once said “Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentleman’s game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by beasts.” The coming on board of Delta Beverages through its Lion Lager brand in 2011 was the dawn of a new era in the game of rugby in Zimbabwe.

Having gone for so many years without sponsorship, club rugby suffered a lot resulting in a number of teams folding as they could not afford to carry on playing rugby, as the costs of transport and running clubs were very high and unmanageable.

This resulted in the formation of the Northern Rugby League and Mid/Mat League in 2006, were teams from the same city played together to cut on transport costs.

It was not the most ideal situation but was a necessity to try and keep the game of rugby alive.
What was more encouraging was the fact that the clubs took the initiative to start and run a league without the input of the mother body.

Because of success of the first two years the passion and love of the game and the need to revive Inter-City Club rugby, clubs from the Northern and Southern regions came together and agreed to combine and form the National League.

The year 2009 saw the birth of the National Rugby League with six teams and the excitement of Inter City Club Rugby was re-born.
Even with that excitement, clubs still had to foot their own travel and medical services bills as we struggled to lure partners to the game.

In 2011, Delta Beverages, through their Lion Lager Brand, came on board to become the first partners of the National Rugby League.
In the past three seasons that we have partnered with Delta, clubs have been provided with branded playing kits, medical kits, branded training equipment that included balls, ruck shields, tackling bags, cones etc.

These were handed over to the clubs and the clubs have been putting the equipment to good use and the results are there for everyone to see, standard of the game has improved, though it might not be to the levels that we would want but there has been a major injection of life.

The Lion Lager National Rugby League has in the past years, through clubs, produced some great players that have gone on to represent the country at different National team levels and competitions.

We are very proud to say, the success of most of the National Teams, has had a very huge Lion Lager National Rugby League influences as most of the players are drawn from our League.

It was after the coming on board of Delta in 2011, that flagship team of Zimbabwe rugby, the Sables, who were recently in Namibia playing in a three Nations tournament, started improving on the world rankings. Our National Sevens’ team keeps making the nation proud by taking part in the various Sevens circuits and both these teams draw the majority of their players from the Lion Lager National Rugby League.

It is with this in mind that we are grateful and proud to be associated with Delta Beverages through their Lion Lager Brand and we hope, as a rugby family, we are helping in RAISING THE PRIDE of the Lion Lager brand and Delta as a whole.
Rugby is great.

The players don’t wear the helmets or padding, they just beat the living daylights out of each other and then go for a beer after the game.
The 2013 season was by and large a successful season as we saw all games being played unlike in previous seasons.

At the beginning of the season we welcomed a new kid in the National Rugby League family, Zvish Bullz, formerly known as Shabanie Rugby Club, played its first National Rugby League at MacAdam Stadium.

It was very refreshing to see rugby being played in that part of the country again, even though they got a baptism of fire.
A couple of cricket scores made them realise that they had now joined the big boys of rugby and they needed to tighten the belts it they were to compete.

As the season wore on, they started upping their game and score lines started to resemble rugby matches.
Zvish Bullz once said; “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender that is strength.”

They started believing in themselves and they started applying themselves and became competitive.
In as much as we celebrate the success of the 2013 season, the rugby fraternity was and NRL in particular was saddened by the passing on of two passionate rugby players.

Hardlife Majaha was involved in a car accident two years ago and was bedridden since then, till his time of his death this year.
Slimfield Moyo was also involved in a car accident in Shurugwi while he was on his way to meet up with his team mates in Zvishavane. He died on his way to Shurugwi Hospital.

As if the two deaths were not enough, the Matabeleland Warriors team was involved in an accident while on their way to fulfil a fixture in Harare.

Fortunately, no one died in that accident, though the two coaches were badly injured.
The breaks that we had during the season, due to the various National Team commitments had a negative effect on the running of the league, team preparations, conditioning of the players and the lack of numbers to our games and players dropping out midway through the season.

This is one area that we are hoping to address in the coming seasons by engaging other partners to augment the good work that is being done by Delta Beverages.

The National Rugby League remains the biggest and most successful rugby playing entity in Zimbabwe. NRL is the most visible entity that has put rugby back in the picture in this world.

Because of the success of the NRL, a lot of clubs have been revived and they all dream of playing in the Top flight at some state.
Areas that never had rugby before or where rugby had died have started playing rugby or have revived their romance with the game.

At NRL we are very proud to have taken rugby, once considered a minority and exclusive sport, to the majority and revived it in areas like Mutare, Gweru, Zvishavane, Masvingo, Mabvuku, Mbare, Western Suburbs and the uniformed forces.

The Lowveld, I am told, have started a team and we are hoping they will come to the party one day.
All we need to do for this project to keep being a success it is now, is to put our heads down pull and push in one direction.

The brain drain remains our biggest challenge as a sport.
There are a lot of rugby players at school level but as soon as the players leave school, they either join Universities of the country, go and play in other Unions as they look for a living or they simply just stop playing rugby.

Years back, rugby used to indirectly provide employment to school leavers and it was easy then to retain players, clubs used to have 2nd, 3rd and Under-21 teams playing rugby, unfortunately those are just but memories today as clubs are struggling even to field 2nd string sides.

It is our hope that with the creation of the standalone sports ministry, we will unlock a lot of opportunities that can assist out school leavers to find their way into the world as employees or make it through to local universities.

It is my wish that we turn around the National Rugby League to be self-sustaining and even be an employer.
I believe that, through different projects, we can empower our youths through various income-generating projects.

We should, as sport, start thinking of moving away from the mentality of going around with a begging bowl for sponsorship, but to go out and find partners for such projects.

I think even the big corporates like Delta would not mind partnering us in such projects as it is a win-win situation for all parties. I believe that the National Rugby League can be an equal employer of our young men and women that would have left school.

To fellow rugby family members, my word to you is that the partnership with Delta is a business transaction that we need to preserve and respect at all times.

Such partnerships have been few in our rugby and I would encourage you all to guard this partnership with jealous and pride that it deserves.

We need to be mindful that wherever we are, we are ambassadors of the game of rugby and the Lion Lager brand.
How we carry ourselves determines our current partner’s future in rugby and also influences decisions of prospective partners, so we need to carry ourselves with pride and dignity, that is expected of us.

The time has come for us to move away from being passionate about the game and become professional in our approach.
Passion has brought us this far but professionalism will carry us to the next level.

We have the potential to be a very big and competitive League in Africa, but the onus is on us to realise that dream, the sky is not the limit.