Online Reporter
Ellina Mhlanga
Zimpapers Sports Hub
ZIMBABWE junior men’s handball team coach Tafadzwa Madure says with limited time to prepare the team for the upcoming International Handball Federation Zone VI Trophy, it is going to be difficult to defend their title.
The youth and junior men’s teams finally regrouped for the final phase of their preparations for the regional tournament scheduled to run from April 28 to May 3 in Lusaka, Zambia.
The teams trooped into camp last Friday at Harare High School.
“In terms of preparedness, I think we are slightly behind, and us being two-time title holders, a lot of countries are going to come there to fight against Zimbabwe.
“It is going to be a pretty much difficult task considering the kind of preparation that we have. But we are going to work flat out to produce results,” said Madure.
The junior team won the title for the last two editions, in 2022 and 2024 at home as Zimbabwe hosted the tournament.
They beat Zambia in the final on both occasions while the youth side lost in the final. Initially they were expected to regroup on April 12, but due to financial challenges the camp was delayed.
They got down to business on Saturday, and Madure said they are looking at finalising the travelling team today from the 22-member provisional squad in camp.
“We started training on Saturday.
“And we are going to train again tomorrow, we are still on 22 players, so we are going to trim them to 14, the actual number of players that we are supposed to travel with to Zambia.
“So, the programme for today (yesterday) is all about assessing them, those who qualify and those who should go back,” said Madure.
The teams last met in March when they had a two-day training camp.
Madure admitted they have to work with what they have, and are hoping for a friendly match with a local club.
“The first two days we have been working on intensity of our players, conditioning them, then the next few days we will be going for light training.
“We are going for competition after this camp so we don’t want to go with players carrying injuries or burned out.
“So, probably we will be working on combination. Like from Tuesday up until Saturday, the training will be mainly focusing on combination.
“We are looking forward to having a friendly match with one of the local clubs on Tuesday, that will be tomorrow.” Madure added, the friendly will give them a chance to assess the players in a game situation and identify areas that still need more attention.
“We are going to use it to assess again if the players are implementing what we have taught them in the previous days, and to see where we should correct them before we depart for the tournament.
“We had the problem of funds. If we had funds, we could have done like periodic camps whereby we would assess them, we give them training programmes to do at home, when they come, we assess them again. “But now we need to do a crash programme. That’s why we had only two days of intense training,” Madure said.
The youth side is under the guidance of Farai Mukundu.
The teams are scheduled to leave for Zambia on April 27.
