The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE national Fifteens rugby team coach, Brendan Dawson is looking for more accuracy from his team going forward.
The Sables won the Victoria Cup with five wins out of the six matches they played, with the only defeat coming against Kenya last Saturday. Losing to the Simbas did not matter much to the Sables since they had already won the Victoria Cup a week before when they defeated Zambia 41-5 in Lusaka.
Dawson feels that more precision is needed by the Sables seeing that they allowed teams to recover whenever they took a commanding lead. He was impressed by how his defence operated, the lineout dominance and the atmosphere in the team while he is of the view that the scrum can get even better.
“We have to improve our accuracy and being clinical the whole game, we allowed teams to come back so we have to be clinical and accurate. We have to improve our fitness levels. The vibe that was outstanding, lineout were outstanding, we can work on our scrumming. Our defence was phenomenal, we put a lot of work in defence,’’ Dawson said.
On the defeat to Kenya, Dawson pointed out that there was little motivation for his players to win the match since they had already secured the Victoria Cup seven days before with victory over Zambia. The absence of players like Tryan Fagan, Martin Mangongo, Cleopas Kundiona and Shingirai Katsvere saw some positional switches being made. Blithe Mavesere, who usually operates at flank, was picked on the wing against Kenya.
“We went into the Kenyan game with seven new faces in the set up, winning the trophy the weekend before, it was difficult to motivate the guys to win against Kenya. Kenya played really well.”
Dawson was disappointed not to win all the six matches but was delighted that the Sables had achieved their goal of winning the Victoria Cup, a four nation competition. Zimbabwe were the last winners of the Victoria Cup when they defeated Kenya and Uganda home as well as away in 2011.
“I am disappointed not to win six out of six, our goal was to win the Victoria Cup, we did it the week before(we played Kenya) so we achieved our goals. It was always going to be a tough one. Kenya did an excellent job, we were up for it but our guys were not mentally up for it. We did a lot of experimenting because of injuries and availability of players,’’ Dawson said.
The former Sables skipper was impressed with the leadership skills of Hilton Mudariki and his deputy Biselele Tshamala.
Dawson expressed his appreciation to the team’s sponsors, Portnex, Zerttew Resources and Titan Law.
“Without our sponsors it doesn’t work, we are grateful for what our sponsors have done. I am truly grateful to Portnex, Zerttew and Titan Law.”
The Sables mentor said the players have been given some time off after the Victoria Cup with the pre-season fine tuning to start at the end of October. He is yet to know what kind of preparations they will have ahead of the 2023 World Cup qualifiers which start in June next year. What excites Dawson is that all the players involved in the Victoria Cup success are available again to do battle for the Sables next year.
@Mdawini_29
