Zimbabwe: Funding Needed for Young Sables

Kevin Mapasure

9 June 2011

THE Young Sables’ bid to outsprint the world at the Junior World Rugby Trophy was brutally crushed by bigger built opponents provoking questions whether there should be a change in strategy and style at such tournaments.

Zimbabwe was unsuccessful in their latest assault on the second tier global show in Georgia where they lost to Japan, 24-37, Canada, 23-49, Georgia, 19-50 and the US, 29-30.

The four defeats which resulted in the team finishing last at the Georgia tournament also trigger questions about Zimbabwe’s ability to keep up with the ever evolving trends in the game where science and nutrition are now of importance.

But the Achilles’ heel is the absence of finances.

Armed with raw talent and speed as their major weapon, the Young Sables left the country with high hopes of winning at least two pool matches to improve on their previous performance where they had managed one in 2010.

Even with a coach of Brighton Chivandire’s repute, the Young Sables were soon to realise that they lacked one of the rudimentary requirements at that level of competition.

They had all the confidence that they can outrun their opponents, yet they were brutalised by the Japanese, the Georgians and the Canadians in their pool matches, who all outweighed and overpowered the Zimbabweans.

Georgia outweighed Zimbabweans by an average of 14kgs per player and the Japanese and Canadians were equally bigger than the Zimbabweans, taking advantage of the local boys who had all the skill and pace but not enough power.

Despite the poor show, the Young sables showed they are not short of talent producing scintillating moments of brilliance in all the matches, of which if they nurtured, they can compete at the highest level.

But Zimbabwe’s short in the latest science will be a cause for concern with qualification matches of next year’s edition of the same tournament set for next month.

Sables coach Brendan Dawson said the big difference is that Zimbabwe played against professionals while most of the local players are amateur and do other things to earn a living apart from playing rugby.

“It’s sad they lost all the matches but we should keep building and try to improve,” said Dawson. “The difference though is that those guys are professionals. They play rugby and they live rugby. Everything they do is for rugby so they have more time in the gym while our players have to do other things to earn a living.”

He said there will be a need to have more funding into the sport for the country to keep up with the evolving trends.

Most of the players who travelled to Georgia are locally based while captain Marco Mama plays professional rugby in England with others such as Takudzwa Mandiwanza also based in colleges abroad. Dawson said with enough funding local players can be developed to match their international counterparts.

Prior to their journey, coach Brighton Chivandire talked of a three-year plan that would culminate in the team getting promotion into the more prestigious Junior Rugby World Cup, but that was left in tatters with the team performing worse than last year’s seventh position finish, at least the results suggest.

Aaron Jani who is the chairman of the Under-19/20 committee acknowledged the need to improve the nutrition of the players to improve on size.

“The biggest problem is that we don’t have all our boys in one place where we can regulate their diet for example, some of our boys were actually picking up weight despite the rigorous schedule of the tournament,” said Jani. “Most of our boys cannot afford proper diets, so there may be a need to supplement the diets. We also worked on twinning arrangements where we were learning how other teams were preparing from day one, the staffing and dietary requirements.”

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