adminPaul Munyuki Harare Bureau
THE Zimbabwe Under-20 rugby side’s dream of a top five finish in the World Rugby Under-20 Trophy was blown away on Wednesday morning when they suffered a 42-22 loss at the hands of Fiji at Harare Sports Club.
Going into the tournament aiming for at least two wins, the Brandon Brider-coached side suffered their third straight defeat to the Pacific Ocean islanders and this means they will have to fight and avoid finishing last in the eight-team tournament.
Zimbabwe, who finished bottom of Pool A, will take on Hong Kong who also finished bottom of Pool B.
Young Sables assistant coach Bob Mahari acknowledged that a host of schoolboy errors, combined by lack of aggression and mental weakness, were the biggest reasons they finished bottom of Pool A.
“No doubt it was a tough game. We put in a bit of effort and this seemed like a better game compared to our previous performances but it’s not just a matter of being physical but also being mentally tough.
“We got a number of penalties but it was difficult to go for posts because we were 20 points down yet in this tournament a penalty is only worth two points; three of those would make a try.
“The school boy errors we made need to be fixed but it’s good that some of the players we have this year will be part of the qualifiers team later in the year and also for next year’s tournament which we are hoping to qualify for.”
And now Zimbabwe’s next battle would be to make sure that they do not finish bottom-placed when they feature in the seventh place play-off on Sunday at the same venue.
“We still have pride and that is what we’ll play for on Sunday because as a team that is at home we do not want to finish bottom and we still need to give our fans something to cheer about.
“We’ve not played at this tournament in the last four years and we qualified by being hosts, there was bound to be a lot of pressure but failure to drop-kick, inability to pass well were some of the errors we made and so we’ve to apply ourselves better in the final game,” added the Churchill assistant coach.
However, Mahari says they have learnt quite a number of valuable lessons.
“We’ve to work hard and fix all those mistakes and there are ways of doing things right. The boys have left a lot of sweat and heart out there and they’ve learnt a numner of lessons and also us as coaches have had to learn something as well,” he added.
Namibia — the other African team in the competition — registered the biggest win in the tournament so far with a 70-8 destruction of Asians Hong Kong, scoring nine tries (eight of them converted) to Hong Kong’s one converted effort.
Online Reporter