The Sunday Mail
Sports Reporter
Kenya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Zimbabwe . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
ZIMBABWE’S World Cup dream faded yesterday as the Sables fell to Kenya in an Africa Gold Cup match at the Rfuea Stadium in Nairobi yesterday.
Just like they did in the 23-all draw with Morocco, the visitors put up another performance loaded with entertainment but lacking in result.
Now, it would be quite easy to heap all the blame on coach Peter De Villiers.
After all, he has been throwing his weight around and coming up with suspicious team selections. It is also believed he has fallen out with some of his senior players who opted out of the trip to Kenya.
But then blaming him entirely would be unfair.
Zimbabwe have always lacked the killer instinct, the players’ fitness is sub-par at best and often the team struggles to get out of the gates early on.
Kenya capitalised on all these flaws and raced to a 33-12 first half lead.
A hat trick from Kenyan skipper Davis Chenge, a penalty and another try from winger Tony Onyango almost killed the match as a contest.
But the game turned on its head in the second half.
De Villiers must have given his team the famous pep talk as they came out guns blazing, scoring 24 unanswered points in a 14 minutes spell.
Tries from David Makanda, Farai Mudariki, a penalty try awarded to Zimbabwe and another from Matthew McNab breathed life into the Sables.
The dominance gave Zimbabwe their first and only lead of the game (33-36), rocking the Kenyans and giving the visitors renewed confidence.
But when they were supposed to go for the kill, the Sables went to sleep again and leaked two late tries from Kenyan substitute Dalmus Chitiyi.
Both tries were converted.
De Villiers once again tried to put a positive spin to it all.
“Well, it was a great game,” said the South African rugby tactician.
“It was a great game for the fans as momentum swung both ways and each set of supporters had their fair share. As far as my boys are concerned, we started badly, gave away easy tries and we fell asleep right at the end. Well done to Kenya.”
