Vusumuzi Dube
Mehluli Sibanda in Cape Town, South Africa
ZIMBABWE remain winless at the Rugby World Cup Sevens South Africa 2022 after suffering their second loss at the tournament, beaten 28-0 by Hong Kong in the bowl quarterfinals at the Cape Town Stadium today (Saturday).
The Cheetahs will now face South Korea on Saturday afternoon in the playoff for positions 21 to 24.
After losing their opening match of the tournament 31-7 to Canada on Friday, Zimbabwe were looking for much improved show but it was never going to be as they conceded four tries, which were all converted. Hong Kong raced to a 28-0 lead at halftime and did not score any points in the second stanza as they had already done the job in the opening period. Zimbabwe have now conceded nine tries and only scored one five-pointer in the two matches they have played so far.
Wing Nogel Tinarwo felt that they started off brightly but gave the opponents a lot of time with ball in hand and failed to utilise their own opportunities, which contributed to their downfall.
“I think we had a good start but then we failed to keep on, we gave them too much ball, you can’t score if you don’t have the ball but I feel like we just couldn’t use our opportunities, that’s where we went wrong,’’ Tinarwo said.
Zimbabwe have two more matches to go and Tinarwo’s wish is that they keep the ball more to have a chance of winning both fixtures.
“From what we’ve learnt from the past two games from Canada yesterday and today, we didn’t keep our ball, games going forward we just to treasure our ball so that we win these games because at this level you can’t win without the ball,’’ he said.
At the last Rugby World Cup Sevens held in San Francisco, United States of America in 2018, Zimbabwe finished 23 out of 24 men’s teams, only better than Jamaica. They will be hoping for a better placing this time around.
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Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter