adminSenior Sports Reporter
VETERAN coach Cosmas “Tsano” Zulu was on Saturday spotted in the coal mining town of Hwange where he was conducting trials for the Premiership side that survived relegation by a whisker. The club management immediately quashed speculation that they wanted to rope in the veteran mentor into their technical set up. The trials started on Saturday morning at Lwendulu Old Grounds with the youngsters fighting to impress Zulu, who expressed satisfaction at the level of talent exhibited.
“There is so much talent, it’s really incredible and all that is needed now is to harness this talent into a competitive lot.
“Some of the boys are ready for the Premiership but they will need guidance here and there,” said Zulu, who is also a member of the Zifa high performance team.
Hwange Football Club chairman Joseph Hove said they requested Zulu because of his vast knowledge of football and patience.
“We have not employed him as such; Nation Dube is still our coach. Zulu is only doing talent identification on behalf of the club.
“We wanted someone who does not know these youngsters so that he makes a fair assessment,” said Hove.
The Hwange chairman said the holding of trials was an indication that his club would offload some players ahead of the 2014 Castle Lager Premiership season.
There were six teams from the surrounding villages in the coal mining town, Lwendulu, Cinderella, Madumabisa, Lusumbami, Empumalanga and Ngumija.
The teams were under some retired Hwange players who included Taboniswa Ncube, Charles Nsomba Chuma and Edmore MaMkhwebu Sibanda.
Hwange, who finished the season on position 10 after accumulating 41 points, will kick-start their 2014 pre-season preparations in mid January and will be hoping to have a decent start as compared to their showing this year.
“As you are aware we have our Under-17s and Under-20s who are expected to be our feeder players to the first team.
“We need to have the Under-20s and even Under-17s graduating to the senior team,” said Hove who abandoned the Hwange Golf
Open Championships to spend the whole day witnessing the selection process.
Online Reporter