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Grace Chingoma
Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Rugby Union have hailed the hardworking Zimbabwe women’s rugby sevens team — the Lady Cheetahs — and pledged more support to the team after they sealed their qualification for the Rugby Africa Women’s Cup over the weekend.
The women’s team had a brilliant outing at the women’s Africa Cup pre-qualifiers held in Maseru, Lesotho, over the weekend, where they won all their four matches without conceding a try.
The feat has charmed the game’s fanatics ahead of the continental sevens rugby jamboree. The Lady Cheetahs are now in the main group of the Africa Sevens Cup that will be held in Tunisia in April.
The African qualifiers serve as the ticket to the Rugby World Cup Sevens that will be staged in Cape Town in September, as well as the Commonwealth Games.
Although Zimbabwe are not a member of Commonwealth, the team that finishes second in Tunisia also qualifies for the Rugby World Cup Sevens that will be hosted in South Africa this September.
During the weekend’s games, Zimbabwe were too strong for all their opponents who included Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius.
The Lady Cheetahs thrashed hosts Lesotho 62–0, Namibia 39–0, Botswana 39–0 and Mauritius 20–0.
The victories mean that they will rub shoulders with other countries such as Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Ghana and Uganda at the African Seven Cup in Tunisia in April.
ZRU chief executive, Sifiso Made, said the senior women’s national rugby sevens side deserved the enormous victories after putting in a big shift in their preparations from the end of last year.
“The reason we had such favourable results (in Maseru at the weekend) is that we didn’t break camp during the festive season. In fact, they have been active since they played at the Kenya Sevens in October. They have been training. During the festive period in December, the team was training, eating and sleeping rugby,” said Made.
However, the Union said they will not lose focus in celebrating the weekend’s victories. They have since lined-up some practice matches.
“We have a couple of tournaments lined-up. We want them to play against other teams outside the country so that they have exposure competing in bigger and better tournaments rather than confine them to local matches,” Made said.
The victorious team was expected to arrive back from Maseru yesterday, in batches.
Lady Cheetahs coach, Derek Chiwara, and his troops outclassed all their opponents in the pre-qualifiers played in Maseru over two days. In the opening game against the hosts, Zimbabwe’s tries came from Carol Malenga, who touched down five times into the game, and a brace from Robyn Mhembere.
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