Instead, the 30-member Sables will be confined to playing one game against each other – between the Possibles and the Probables on Friday, before departure for their biggest international assignment in the past four years.
Initially, the Sables were supposed to play the Limpopo Bulls and the Bulls Academy, but the two matches were scrapped after the Zimbabwe Rugby Union could not afford the costs, following a last-minute withdrawal of their sponsor.
”The local union is not in a financial position good enough to cover the hosting expenses of the Zimbabwean team during their four days in Messina. As a result, we have cancelled our intended tour,” said David Crouch of the ZRU. The little funds available, said Crouch, would be directed to the team’s camping, till their departure for the tournament set to start on June 28 with a game against hosts Madagascar.
The Sables will round up their campaign against Kenya on July 6, having met Namibia on July 2. All the matches are being played at the Mahamasina Stadium in Antananarivo.
The team has been boosted by the arrival of high-profile scrum king coach, Balie Swart, a former South African Springbok World Cup-winning tight head prop, who will join them in their last three days of camping.
Balie’s expertise in the scrum is expected to provide The Sables with a more competitive scrum at the qualifiers, a department the Namibian team in particular, may look to exert their previous dominance in.
Zimbabwe are desperate to qualify for the World Cup, after they missed out on the 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 finals.
The last time The Sables were at the World Cup was way back in 1991 when the now-late Richard Tsimba made the world sit up and take notice. Since then they have lost out, with the honour of representing Africa falling to Namibia, Ivory Coast and Tunisia. The Namibians still stand in the Sables way, and they should also be wary of the vastly improved Kenyans. The Kenyan teamshas been drawn largely from their Sevens Rugby team, which is among the top 10 in the world and plays in the lucrative IRB World Sevens Rugby Series.
The winning team from the World Cup qualifiers makes it to the 2015 World Cup finals to be held in England while the second placed team will be offered another chance when it gets involved in the play-offs with a team from Asia.
Post published in: Rugby