ZRU under pressure

Paul Munyuki Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Rugby Union is under pressure to come out with one voice today when the board meets to finalise Liam Middleton’s self appointment to the role of Cheetahs coach four weeks ago. Three meetings of various issues are expected to take place at the rugby headquarters today, among them that of between the Union and the National Rugby League, Union and referees but the focus of attention will be that of the ZRU board.

Sidelined Cheetahs coach Gilbert Nyamutsamba will know by end of day if he will get his job back following a largely amateurish way in which both the ZRU and Middleton pushed him into the shade.

Middleton unilaterally declared himself coach of the Cheetahs prior to the Zimbabwe invitational Sevens tournament last month pushing Nyamutsamba out of the system and the Bulawayo-based gaffer had to watch his side from the terraces.

Unfortunately, the ZRU were very weak and equally unprofessional in dealing with the matter as they could not resolve the issue prior to the Cheetahs trip to Hong Kong for the core membership qualifiers.

And the results at the qualifiers were disastrous as the Cheetahs — who had won the same tournament last year under Nyamutsamba — failed to make it past the quarter-final stage.

But the Cheetahs will have to keep hoping that the proposed second tier World Series comes to life next year as they are only left with the Africa Cup and the Middelburg 7s tournaments in September.

As a director of rugby, Middleton is not allowed to make any appointments, fire or re-assign coaches and his role should be that of making recommendations to the ZRU board if there are any changes to be made on the coaching staff.

This is in addition to the fact that a committee can appoint a coach who they deem fit for their brand and in this case the Cheetahs committee led by chairman Donald “Brasco” Mangenje had faith in Nyamutsamba following the departure of Middleton for the United Kingdom.

Middleton had been in charge of the Cheetahs up until 2010 when he got a job in England and since then Nyamutsamba — who was his assistant then — took over the hot seat before the former came back to “wildly reclaim his job.

However, Middleton went overboard and took charge of the Cheetahs for the third time in as many tournaments having pushed Nyamutsamba out of the touring party to Port Elizabeth for the South African leg of the World Series last December.

And The ZRU led by president John Falkneberg, executive vice-president Colleen de Jong and none executive vice president Nyararai Sibanda showed they did not have full control of events in the Sevens version of the game.

Today their mettle will once again be put to the test.
The politics between Middleton and the ZRU came at the expense of the nation as the former failed to lead the Cheetahs to a successful defence of their Hong Kong title, only to end in disaster.

Player rotation during the tournament was weak, and selection was also questionable following the inclusion of such players like Benjamin Nichols who failed to justify his place in the team clearly showing he did not belong in the final 12.

While Falkenberg insisted that Nyamutsamba was the coach, the situation on the ground told a different story as the former Sables international did not take charge f the Cheetahs during the Zimbabwe invitational and the Hong Kong tournament.