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Paul Munyuki Sports Correspondent
AS the Zimbabwe Rugby Union takes over the youth teams, a number of changes are expected to be made this week when they announce the revamped Craven Week technical teams.
Last year the ZRU indicated they were not happy with the Zimbabwe teams’ results from the South African Youth Festivals over the past years, hinting to make several changes to this year’s technical teams.
And the time has come!
The biggest talking point was that of the Under-18 side that was led by former Sables and Young Sables coach Godwin “Jaws” Murambiwa as they had been struggling against their peers in South Africa’s Craven Week Festival.
“We are going to announce our new coaching teams for each of the four youth teams sometime next week (this week) and yes, there could be some changes which we are not going to talk about now,” said ZRU vice-president Nody Kanyangarara late last week.
Over the last three years Zimbabwe have only won one out of nine games at the Craven Week Under-18 festival, leaving coach Murambiwa with a 11 percent success rate while the Under-13s, coached by Hellenic’s Gordon Pangeti, have won three of their 12 outings in the same period under review.
This means that Pangeti has a winning rate of 25 percent over the last three Craven Week outings, something the ZRU noted with concern.
The Under-18 girls have been to two successive editions of the Girls Youth Week under the guidance of acting director of rugby Nsikelelo Sibanda and have won four of their six games — two in each of the years since 2015.
And for that reason they are one of the most successful stories of late, giving Sibanda a 66.67 percent success rate in the six games he has played, losing to Eastern Province on both outings.
However, it is at the Under-17 level that coach Doug Trivella should be respected.
Though he holds the same record as Sibanda with a 66.67 percent winning rate over the last three seasons, Trivella is the only coach who has beaten Namibia twice over the last three seasons.
Trivella has also been consistent in that he has won twice in each of his last three campaigns.
In the previous years, the schools rugby board was tasked with the appointment of the selection of teams and appointment of technical teams but the former National Rugby League president Kanyangarara said from this year, the ZRU will directly be responsible for all the appointments of coaches.
“Previously the schools, led by Reg Querl, would appoint coaches for all the youth teams but as from this year it will be a different story.
However, we will be working closely with the head-in-charge of schools rugby,” added Kanyangarara.
Already changes were made to the Under-20 side where Brandon Brider was last year fired for poor results with his former assistant coach Bob Mahari taking over as the head coach.
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