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And that was exactly the case yesterday when Zimbabwe thrashed Tunisia 42-0 in their second game of the Junior Africa Cup rugby tournament at Prince Edward Schools’ Jubilee Field.
Zimbabwe bagged six tries, two of them converted, and a penalty to seal the victory and set up a potentially explosive final against Namibia at the same venue on Saturday — a performance that was miles ahead compared to their opening game against Zambia last Saturday.
Through the heroics of former Prince Edward and Zimbabwe Under-18 flyhalf Luke Masasire, who engineered good structured backline rugby for the Young Sables, Zimbabwe cruised to a comfortable hiding over the North Africans.
Masasire also added nine points on the board off a try and two conversions as Zimbabwe set up a perfect date against bitter rivals Namibia for the decider on Saturday.
There was a whole lot of difference for the better to the way the Brighton Chivandire-coached side played despite the fact that the naturally talented flyhalf had not played any form of rugby in three months.
“It was a great game but I think I could have done better because I have not been playing rugby for the past three months so there is huge room for improvement for me.
“There was a lot of pressure in the game but I would also like to give it up to my teammates who managed to step up and we played structured rugby, we played to the game plan and with that we managed to destroy them.
“I missed a lot of conversions due to lack of kicking practice and definitely there is need to do something about it if we are to get the best off every try we score,” said Masasire.
However, he could not drive Zimbabwe alone as the Young Sables showed a lot of zeal and power to win the game and within the first 15 minutes they had taken a 15-point lead.
First on the scoreboard was Kudzai Mashawi after he was set up by eighthman Tapiwa Tsomondo, following a well worked out move by Masasire in the third minute of the game and Masasire added the bonus points.
It was not long before Tunisia were penalised for coming into a ruck from the side and Zimbabwe captain Josh Smallbones opted for the posts, giving Zimbabwe a 10-0 lead off a Masasire left boot.
Former Under-18 winger Lance Chikodzi haunted the Tunisa defence in the 15th minute with a try but this marked Zimbabwe’s bad spell of spotkicking as Masasire and Tarisai Musakanda took turns to miss, putting six conversions to waste.
Masasire added his try on the board to give Zimbabwe a 20-0 lead going into the breather and the case was almost the same for him as he converted the last try of the game.
Lazzie Chisaya, Takudzwa Kumadiro, Chikodzi and scrummy Ian Surtees added Zimbabwe’s tries in the second half to seal their second win in the tournament and set up a final against Namibia.
Based at Dale College in South Africa where he has more interest in cricket than rugby, Masasire showed a huge difference with his presence in the team as he was not able to play on Saturday upon arrival from the Under-19 cricket World Cup that was held in Australia.
With good communication skills, good ball distribution, cross dominance in his legs, and natural skill and talent, Masasire managed to up the Young Sables game and could easily be noticed as the difference between Saturday’s 13-10 win over Kenya and yesterday’s convincing performance.
“Every team relies on a number 10 and a number 10 who puts them on the front foot always works wonders in winning games and this being the second game we gelled well.
“I thought we were going to play much better than we did today and on a scale of one to ten I would say we were only at six.
“But I love the tempo shown by the boys in the first quarter of the game and that is how we were supposed to play.
“But unfortunately we lost the momentum, we just went to sleep and lost our patterns, and missed six conversions, that translates to 12 points we could have utilised but we need to work on that, it’s an area of concern,” said Chivandire.
Online Reporter