The Sunday Mail
Deputy Sports Editor
THERE might be inactivity at the playing grounds, but the Zimbabwe Rugby Union (ZRU) office has been a hive of activity amid indications it received an overwhelming response to advertisements for applications for various men and women’s age group coaching posts, with applicants coming from as far and wide as France, Spain, England and even Dubai.
ZRU has resolved to use the Covid-19-induced period of inactivity to restructure national teams ahead of its World Cup, Africa Cup and other international campaigns.
This follows its decision to terminate the contracts of all age group coaching personnel for both men and women, earlier this year, with the exception of the flagship side, the senior men’s team for whom Brendon Dawson is the coach.
All the other contracts which include that of the Sevens side — The Cheetahs — were due to run out at the end of the year and Aaron Jani’s leadership sought to give fresh impetus to all, but one of the teams as the union moves to reposition Zimbabwe on the international rugby map.
It has emerged that over 90 applications have found their way to ZRU chief executive Sifiso Made’s desk for transmission to the technical committee led by Sables legend Bright Chivandire.
“Basically, we have well over 90 applications that have come through to the union for the various posts that we had advertised for the retooling exercise,” said Made.
“Of the 90 applicants; 60 have shown an interest in the Under-20 coaching post, while the rest were for the other teams.
“Overwhelming is the best word I can use to describe this response as we have had interest from applicants in Uruguay, Spain, France, England, a lot from South Africa and we even have one out of Dubai.
“The reach has been truly far and wide.
“We are doing things differently this time around. While years gone by, we would sit down and interview for the coaching, assistant coach and manager; we have since looked at the international trend and decided that we will only look for the main coach, and then trust him to either bring or look for his own people.
“The mandate we will give them is until the 2023 World Cup, and it will be up to them to come up with their own programme and personnel. Where there is a need to help, we will lend our assistance, but we want a person to be accountable for his or her team,” said Made.
With the applications now received, the technical committee is set to shortlist those they believe are suitable for their requirements after which online interviews will be done “and announcements made in due course’’.
“It’s unfortunate, or fortunate, that we received such an overwhelming response; with the task ahead now being shortlisting the applicants, and conducting the interviews. Due to the pandemic; it’s going to be impossible to conduct face-to-face interviews, so we will likely conduct them virtually after shortlisting the suitable candidates. This, however, will be determined by availability, as some of these candidates are already in existing jobs and coaching posts.”
