The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
WHEN South African Peter de Villiers was appointed Zimbabwe national rugby team coach in February, there was a lot of excitement.
This was a man who had taken the Springboks to the quarter-finals of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. De Villiers was tasked with ensuring that Zimbabwe qualify for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. It was a challenge that the man from Paarl embraced and had Zimbabweans believing that their beloved Sables will line up against the world’s best for the first time 1991 when they made it to Wales.
With the Sables Trust playing their part by making sure that the coach and his players were well looked after, it seemed like nothing would stop Zimbabwe’s quest to make it to Japan next year.
Fast forward to July, all that optimism is gone with the Sables out of contention for a place at the World Cup. As things stand, Namibia, with a 100 percent record look likely to automatically qualify as the Rugby Africa Gold Cup winners while second-placed Kenya will get a shot at qualification via the Repêchage tournament to be held in France if they finish second.
The Sables started off their campaign on a bad note when they stumbled to a 23-23 draw with Morocco at Harare Sports Club on 16 June. From there, they lost 45-36 to Kenya and then last Saturday they were beaten 18-14 by Tunisia.
With two matches remaining, Zimbabwe will now be concerned more about trying to remain in the elite Rugby Africa Gold Cup. The Sables face Namibia at Hartsfield Rugby Ground on 4 August before they round off their Gold Cup away to Uganda on 18 August. With the way the Sables have played, they are not guaranteed victory in any of those two matches, which could spell disaster.
In 2016, Zimbabwe were meant to be relegated to the Silver Cup after losing all their matches to Namibia, Kenya and Uganda but some boardroom decisions ensured that they remained in with a chance to qualify for the World Cup.
At the moment, Zimbabwe are only better than Tunisia and Uganda who are yet to collect any points from this year’s competition. Only one team is being relegated from the Gold Cup at the end of this year’s competition. Zimbabwe survived last year with Senegal going down but they are in danger of being relegated this year.
Zimbabwe have to minimise the damage against Namibia and then beat Uganda in order to ensure that they remain in the Gold Cup, where they have been since 2012.
The Zimbabwe Rugby Union (zru) have responded to the debacle by removing former national team captain Brendan Dawson from his role as Sables assistant coach with the ex-national team coach now in charge of only the Under-23 players. De Villiers has been asked to nominate a locally-based assistant coach to work with him for the matches against Namibia and Uganda.
“The assistant coach Brendan Dawson will now focus on an Under-23 Academy side for those players who are not in the Sables squad and those who are coming from the schools system. He will be based in Bulawayo at Hartsfield. Please note that this is not a demotion, but a refocus since our goal of reaching the World Cup has failed to materialise, we are now looking to the future. Peter de Villiers will now pick a local assistant coach to help him finish the Gold Cup campaign. There are two fixtures remaining, Namibia and Uganda,’’ read a statement from ZRU sent out last Thursday.
Dawson’s removal from the national team coaching setup should be an indication that there were problems in the Sables technical department.
ZRU have also gotten tougher with the players after the Tunisia shambles which saw the team sleep on the streets in protest over poor accommodation facilities. According to ZRU, Sables players will now have to sign a code of conduct, a player contract as part of the eligibility processes for selection. This will among other things address social media etiquettes and allowances, amounts and dates of payments.
In order to make sure that there is no repeat of what happened in Tunisia, ZRU will dispatch vice-president South, Martin Shone to Uganda to check on the team’s accommodation.
With World Cup qualification not achieved, it is yet to be seen if ZRU stick with De Villiers. The South African signed a two-year contract and it would be interesting to see if ZRU keep him or decide to part ways with the former Springboks coach. De Villiers has been accused of sticking with players who are out of form while ignoring those based overseas that have made themselves available for selection.
From the excitement created by the appointment of De Villiers, a lot had been expected but it has ended in disappointment with the Sables now fighting to stay in the elite group with World Cup qualification not achieved.
