Sables match ‘87 team

Four teams — Nigeria, Madagascar, Kenya and Zimbabwe — took part in the inaugural African tournament after Tunisia withdrew at the last-minute.
The Tunisians were a very strong team then and played in the European A Division against the likes of France, Romania and Italy.
The Zimbabwe team was built around Andy Ferreira, legend Richard Tsimba, Andre Buitendang, Julian Kamba, Mark NeillKevin Graham and former player Brian Murphy was the coach.
Zimbabwe’s opening match was against Nigeria and this proved a one-sided game with the Sables running in 20 tries with the legendary Tsimba and Neill each scoring a record five tries in their 111-12 win.
Two days later Zimbabwe took on Madagascar and won 66-15, scoring 13 tries.
A 44-12 win against Kenya saw Zimbabwe lift the cup for the first time and Neill emerged as the top try-scorer with nine in three matches.
Tsimba finished with eight.
The Sables had just taken part in the 1987 World Cup — that was also the first edition of the world tournament, which was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia.
The Zimbabweans suffered three straight defeats to Romania (20-21), Scotland (21-60) and France (12-70).
The Sables’ victory in the All-Africa Cup then means that the win in Tunisia last weekend was Zimbabwe’s second African title.
The past three weeks have largely been a successful spell for Zimbabwe rugby with the respective national sides at various tournaments managing to win most of their games.
Nine games were played by Zimbabwean representatives during that period and they won six, giving them a 66,67 percent success rate.
The Sables’ 22-18 victory over Uganda, in the final in Tunisia, dwarfed everything.
The Young Sables apparently blew the winds of success with a 22-10 win in their final game of the Junior World Rugby Trophy seventh place play-off in the United States.
This was Zimbabwe’s only win in the tournament but it triggered a wave of good results for the country on the international rugby scene as the Under-16, Under-18 and the Sables all were successful.
The Under-16 did well at the Grant Khomo Rugby Week.
They beat Golden Lions XV 21-18, which resulted in them being promoted to play on the main field, where they overpowered Griquas Country Districts 18-14 in their second game.
However, they lost 18-30 to Namibia on the final day of the festival.
The Under-18 side were disappointing at the Craven Week festival where they won just one of their three games — beating Border Country Districts 31-9.
Defeats to Limpopo Blue Bulls and Namibia followed.
But, even against that background, it’s hard not to see the smiles that are everywhere in the rugby family in this country today.