Paul Munyuki Harare Bureau
CHEETAHS stand-in captain Tafadzwa Chitokwindo, who was in command over the weekend in Windhoek, Namibia, says he is happy with the rugby side’s performance that saw them finish second to South Africa Academy at the SAFland tournament. Zimbabwe won four of their five games with their only defeat coming in the final of the two-day competition at the hands of eventual winners South Africa.
They lost 0-24.
With three debutantes in the line-up, Chitokwindo said he was proud of the way his boys fared. “As a team we played up to expectation. Our aim was to win the Cup, but we just came short. “Going into the tournament, we had a good number of debutantes but despite that, we managed to go all the way, meaning we are in the right direction,” said Chitokwindo.
Taddy (Whata) Dzandiwandira, Takudzwa Francisco and Takudzwa Kumadiro were the three new caps in the Cheetahs and forward Biselele Tshamala believes they have great potential as Zimbabwe look to build a team for the future under coach Daniel Hondo.
“I think we played well, managed to win four of the five matches we played considering we took a very young team and and had three new caps in it. We stood our ground against stronger, bigger and physical oppositions.
“There’s room for improvement though and by not winning the cup we can’t fault anyone at all, it was a team effort and the boys played their part throughout the tournament,” said the former Zimbabwe Under-20 lock.
However, Tshamala will not be part of the Cheetahs side to Kenya this weekend where Zimbabwe will take part in the Safari Sevens tournament.
Zimbabwe have a chance of playing Kenya, who are their biggest rivals in the Olympic qualifier tournament, with only one team — the tournament winners — earning an automatic ticket to the Rio 2016 Games while the runners-up will go for play-offs.
Having taken a break, the Cheetahs will today be back in business as they prepare for the East African tournament and are scheduled to arrive in Kenya by Friday.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe women’s Sevens rugby side — the Pangolins — still have a chance of making it for the Olympics despite having finished fourth at the Africa qualifiers held in South Africa over the weekend.
Hosts South Africa won the automatic African ticket but their participation at the Games is subject to their government’s approval while runners-up Kenya and semi-finalists Zimbabwe and Tunisia are expeced to travel for the play-offs.
After missing out on the automatic spot, the three African countries will join 13 other countries as they battle for one ticket to the Olympics in the repechage to be held before June 2016.
According to World Rugby, the exact date and venue will be confirmed before the end of the year.
South Africa women Sevens became the eighth team to qualify for the Olympics after New Zealand, Canada, Australia, England, Colombia, USA and France while Brazil automatically qualified by virtue of being hosts.
The 10th and 11th women Sevens teams for the Olympics will be known at the end of the Oceania women’s qualifier set for Auckland and at the end of the Tokyo women’s Sevens tournament at the end of November.