Team selection leads to Craven Week disaster

suffered a 55-18 defeat at the hands of rivals Namibia at the Diamond Fields High School in Kimberly on Saturday.
What started as a dream journey with a 68-3 destruction of Border Country Districts last Tuesday ended up as a nightmare as the junior national side turned on their worst performance in six years as they fell 7-81 to the Limpopo Blue Bulls.
This was certainly not the best side that could represent the nation, at this stage, but it is not yet known what the selection panel had in mind when they picked such a pathetic side. As witnessed during the schools rugby season, there are clearly better players who could have made it for the Under-18 side but, for one reason or the other, they were overlooked during the selection process a month ago.
And, because of their poor performance, Zimbabwe suffered their first defeat to Namibia in four years and also crashed to their most embarrassing defeats at the Craven Week festival.
This performance will definitely make life difficult for the Zimbabwe Under-19 technical team ahead of the Junior Africa Cup set for Prince Edward on Friday as the Under-18 side plays feeder to the Junior World Rugby Trophy side.
It will be surprising if, at most, five players from this Craven Week side make it into the Under-19 side owing to the poor quality they exhibited last week.
The win gave the Namibians confidence and an upper hand going into the Junior Africa Cup as they have been drawn in the same pool as Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe side could easily have been mistaken for a junior club, still learning to play the game.
According to the festival regulations, all the players should, by end of their side’s second game, have played a full match and this forced coach Godwin “Jaws” Murambiwa to put in all the players that had not featured in the first game.
But there was a huge gap in terms of class between the side that played Border CD and the one that went in for the Thursday game against Limpopo Blue Bulls at the GWK Park Rugby Stadium.
These changes saw eight players retaining their place in the starting XV – fullback James Forrester, winger Tarisai Ndudzo, hooker Res Surtees, lock Robert Zee and flanker Tapiwa Tsomondo.
Preston Bryant was moved from centre to scrumhalf, Takudzwa Chieza shifted from inside centre to outside centre and captain Gareth Meikle was re-assigned to number 14 from eighth man.
New faces were Junior Hlahla, who came in for Kudakwashe Makuvire at loose-head prop, Andries van Heeden replaced Joshua Smallbones at tight-head prop, Kumbirai Makanza came in for Mathew Lawson at number four with Tatenda Zinyemba settling in at eight.
Flyhalf Samson Masiyarira was a direct replacement for Luke Masasire with Andrew Wilkinson coming in at outside centre for Bryant while Clement Bruke-Jackson replaces Daniel Rorke at number seven. The heavy losses resulted in Zimbabwe being ranked among the worst teams.
Zimbabwe were, however, missing the services of three key players due to injury in the form of the first choice centre pairing Takudzwa Chieza and Preston Bryant who did duty against Border CD and Samson Musiyarira who could only watch from the terraces.