The Sunday Mail
Tinashe Kusema
THE absence of some of the big guns of local schoolboy rugby could rob the Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival of some gloss.
Upon renewing their three-year partnership with sponsors Dairibord Zimbabwe; the organisers of the festival have set their sights on improving the quality of rugby on display.
“It’s all about the putting quality over quantity,” festival director, Tawanda Jimu has said repeatedly in the build up to the festival which comes to life at Prince Edward School in Harare today.
However, a huge cloud currently hovers over the festival, following the withdrawal of some of the traditional heavyweights of schoolboy rugby.
The Falcon College, Midlands Christian College, Peterhouse, Watershed, Christian Brothers College and Lomagundi will not be on the menu this year.Jimu last week chose to play down the absence of the heavy hitters, arguing it was a once-off occurrence.
“I don’t agree that the absence of these teams will affect the festival that much, after all there are not really big guns,” he said. “While they might be traditional names in schoolboy rugby, their absence will not necessarily affect the quality of rugby from the teams that do show up.
“As far as the absence is concerned, some of these teams are coming from big tours abroad and communicated well in advance about their unavailability.‘We remain in good books with all of them and they have assured us that they will return for next year’s event.”
The festival is expected to run up to May 6 with South African scouts are once again expected to be in full voice as they seeks the next gems from a county that has given the Springboks Tonderai Chavhanga and Tendai “Beast” Mtawarira.
Today gates open at 8 am and roughly 140 games are expected to be played with one of the major highlights being a clash between the Prince Edward and St John’s College second teams.
