The Sunday Mail
THE annual Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival starts tomorrow with the cream of Zimbabwean schools talent on show at Prince Edward and Allan Wilson in Harare.
At least 183 teams are expected to turn out with, director Sebastian Garikai last week revealing a grand plan to make the annual tourney a “truly international festival”.
“Let me start by saying that we are not abandoning our core mandate of developing and exposing the sport from the roots up but instead, we are merely aiming at improving it.
“We have gone to lengths to ensure that this year’s festival will be family friendly as we have constructed kids and adult corners for those attending.
“The kids’ corners will be carefully supervised while we hope to ensure that everybody else, particularly those here for the rugby, get their money’s worth,” said Garikai.
“As for the rugby, what we have done with our fixtures is that this year we have paired the teams according to their strengths.
“The reason behind this move, which is a first in the festival’s history, is to ensure that everybody who comes to watch our matches gets their full money’s worth and witnesses great match-ups.
“The ultimate goal here is to showcase the best Zimbabwe has to offer in terms of schoolboy rugby and put us in a position to realise our vision of turning it into an international festival.
“Once this is done then we will be better-placed to have schools from England, New Zealand and other countries coming over.
“We have already received promising feedback from countries like Namibia, South Africa and Botswana for next year’s event.”
A glance at the fixtures reveals some potentially mouth-watering match-ups with traditional heavyweights such as PE and Churchill set to renew their rivalries.
Hosts PE Tigers will have it all to do when they square up against Peterhouse, Churchill and St George’s College; before they wrap the festival with an intriguing tie against St John’ College on Saturday.
Churchill also have dates against the likes of Falcon College, Vainona and Gifford.
They will also get a chance to settle matters with an Eaglesvale side that edged them 19-21 last year.
Christian Boy’s College make their long-awaited return to the festival and will clash with Allan Wilson, Gateway and Hillcrest College.
St George’s will also be in the thick of things as they play Churchill, Kyle College, Midlands Christian College and Watershed.
As per festival tradition Monday, Wednesday and Thursday have been set aside for developing schools where the likes of Mzilikazi and Mbare Academy, Zengeza High 1, George Stark, Goldridge, Dzivarasekwa High 1, Sobukazi, Entumbane, Mandedza, Atexis, Chipadze and Budiriro High 1 among others will get a run out.
