The Sunday Mail
Tinashe Kusema
ORGANISERS of the Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival have decided to go for quality ahead of quantity with only 150 teams – down from last year’s 220 – at this year’s event.
“It’s all about the putting quality over quantity,” said tournament director Tawanda Jimu. “While we have had huge turnouts in previous editions, and witnessed a steady growth in both the numbers and the appeal of the event, it has been a logistical nightmare.
“Only last year, we had to squeeze over 50 games in the space of the week and had to reduce playing time in some of the games.”
This year’s festival is slated for April 30-May 6 at Prince Edward High School in Harare, and Jimu said trimming of numbers would give budding rugby players more time to prove their worth.
“The hope is that this smaller number will be easier to manage and could see us reverting to the traditional 30-minute games as opposed to the 10 minute games we were forced to use for some of the games last year,” he said.
“As you might be aware, Dairibord recently extended their sponsorship with us with the new deal running up to 2019 and we are all eager to deliver a quality event.”
This year four regional teams – Windhoek Gymnasium, Livingstone Kalobe, the Zambia Under-16 and a Botswana Under-19 team – are expected to add international flavour.
“We have already received confirmation from the visiting teams, while we are currently in the process of finalising the logistics for the visiting referees. The target is to have at least two referees from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia, Uganda and Kenya,” disclosed Jimu.
