adminschoolboy rugby right up to the senior national team — the Sables.
In person, I am an obsessive, hard-to-please, results-driven sports professional.
That’s how I have sustained my family.
I therefore, as a rule, comprehensively detest and will strongly articulate against player-power. A player cannot choose his coach or team manager, just like a child is unable to decide parentage.
Except that these are exceptional circumstances; therefore in the matter of Costa Dinha and company against the ZRU, I unashamedly, support Costa Dinha and his compatriots reported in the media as Tangai Nemadire, Cleopas Makotose, Zvikomborero Murangari, Tichafa Makwanya, Gavin Nyawata, Gardner Nechironga and others.
There could even be more players fed-up with the uninspiring state-of-affairs but do not have the means to express themselves on the call for the unpopular national team manager, Losson Mtongwiza, who, I must admit, was a fantastic rugby forward in his heydays. Sadly, his playing and man-management abilities seem poles apart.
Lawson has had several stints as manager — both Sables and Cheetahs — and if my memory serves me right, there has always been an uproar in the end, resulting in him unceremoniously departing from the teams.
But how he has a creepy ability to keep rebounding into the national team fold, in the same capacity, beats me.
The position of national team manager does not demand any technical skills.
It’s vital though to have a super-personality that plays an honourable role, even as a father-figure to the players and a trustworthy go-between between the authorities and the players. Once that trust has been broken, for whatever reason, it cannot be regained.
Sadly, next week’s essential Africa Cup assignment against ambitious Madagascar may be hit hard if this matter remains unresolved. Experience has taught me that anywhere in the world, athletes will, characteristically, choose to threaten or actually strike at a time when they are not expected to do so.
It’s called strategy, I guess, on the part of the players.
Post Rugby World Cup 2011, England players threatened to boycott a key stakeholder dinner to push their demands for more money. Athletes in this day and age, because they earn a living from sport, are motivated no longer by just wearing the national shirt, but in the main, by money.
No ifs, no buts.
Rugby needs to openly deal with any and all issues arising from the players’ petition if rugby is to reclaim its glory days of appearances at the World Cup.
The most-capable men and women, black or white, must be promoted to take up leadership positions in the game, and not seemingly favoured characters.
I feel too, that when a discord of such proportions takes place in any national set-up, the regulatory Sports Commission must stipulate, at least, to be kept fully-in-the-picture, of developments, and demand, a swift return to normalcy.
I am sorry to say, but I observed a national Sevens rugby camp this year, by chance, where the national team players based in Harare, after pumping weights at a local gym, could only do with an unappetising post-workout “meal” of mealie porridge.
That is just an example that indicts the current intolerable, anti-player, Sables management. In my book, it is a simple matter; when such things occur, it means someone is not doing their job.
Notwithstanding how difficult things may be, to feed your national team rugby players with such stuff is disrespectful and shows a pathetic understanding of the requirements for success at national level.
A perennial rugby problem I have always been aware of is promising the national players the moon, only for you to deliver a worthless marble.
That is a sure fire way of causing ructions and driving a wedge into the family unity, causing untold strife.
I am completely dismayed that in recent times, so many promises have been made to the long-suffering players and when not kept, the players use the only tool at their disposal, the strike, or in this case, a hard-hitting petition.
If national football players, the Warriors, can go on strike and demand their dues, then by all means, let fairness prevail; the Sables must and should use the phenomenal power of collective job action to force the employer to deal with the issue at hand.
It’s old-fashioned, bad management, and a woeful, stop-gap measure, threatening dissenting players, particularly when they have clearly laid out their case, in black-and-white.
I for one, fully support the players’ rational demands to be treated with respect and dignity, and even a little love, as they try to earn a living playing rugby.
The days of divide-and-rule tactics are gone with the Stone Age.
I would actually like to encourage the national team players to register a workers union of sorts and affiliate to one of the several worker organisations to frustrate those who would want to ignore addressing the pertinent issues they may raise.
The national coach, Brandon Dawson (one of my favourite all-time local rugby players), his assistant Cyprian Mandenge, vice-president Colleen de Jong and the Sables committee chairman, Bongai Zamchiya, must deal with this matter decisively — and wisely.
John Falkenberg, the Zimbabwe Rugby Union president, a cool-headed chap with an unquestionable love for the game, can be trusted to make an unemotional decision regarding the chaos that threatens to tear apart the revival of the national game — which cannot be sacrificed on the altar of appeasement.
In any case, for me, there’s only one sound action to perform.
It’s a no-brainer!
It’s staggering that, somehow, the national team manager, a bona-fide rugby man, with all his vast experience, could be so far-removed from his constituency — the players.
For the avoidance of doubt, just like the Sables, I believe in the same issues raised by the players.
Gerald Maguranyanga is a former ZRU board member.
Online Reporter