The Sunday Mail
Petros Kausiyo
Sports Editor
IT has been a long and anxious wait, but the Zimbabwe Sables will finally get their audacious bid for a place at the 2023 World Cup underway when they host Burkina Faso in a Rugby Africa Pool D clash at Old Georgians Sports Club in Harare this afternoon.
The encounter, the first of back-to-back clashes between the Sables and the Stallions, gets underway at 3pm, albeit, before an empty Old Georgians.
This is because spectators are still banned from any sporting event in the country in line with a raft of strict Covid-19 prevention protocols laid down by the Government.
After today’s match, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso will square off again at the same venue on Thursday (2pm) with the qualifying campaign then expected to get into full swing next year.
Pool D has been reduced to a two-team competition after an upsurge in Covid-19 cases in Tunisia meant that the tournament, originally pencilled in for the seaside town of Monastir from July 7-17, was cancelled.
It was later moved to Zimbabwe, who had always been standby hosts, but a lockdown in Tunisia in which their government suspended incoming and outgoing tours, saw the North Africans missing out on the proceedings in Harare.
The Rugby Africa Pool D competition and the ongoing cricket series between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh have meant there will be some international sporting action on home soil for Zimbabweans to follow.
Covid-19 has conspired to limit sporting activities in the country in the last two years with the Chibuku Super Cup football tourney being halted just after reaching its half-way stage.
For the Zimbabwe Rugby Union (ZRU) and the Sables, who are seeking to end three decades of waiting to be part of the World Cup jamboree, anxiety has been mounting with each passing week and month.
But today, coach Brendan Dawson and his men finally get into the kind of competitive action they last tasted in 2019.
The Sables coach, who has assembled a side that seems to have talent, youth and exuberance as its hallmark, rallied his charges to use the two games against Burkina Faso as a stepping stone to greater challenges that lie ahead in their quest to win a ticket to the World Cup.
Dawson declared his men ready to put the Stallions to the sword.
“As we prepare for Burkina Faso, we are excited it is all coming to fruition now and making sure that the two Test matches go ahead.
“We obviously were hoping that one day we would be able to get our World Cup qualifiers here in Zimbabwe.
“But in saying that I truly believe that regardless of the fact that we have got it here in Zimbabwe, if we had to play it anywhere else in the world, for us to compete and to play at the World Cup we have to play to win at any venue.
“So at the end of the day even if it was in Tunisia, we had to go there and win because if you cannot go and win anywhere and beat sides you are meant to beat in order to qualify, then it means you can’t be at the World Cup,’’ Dawson said.
A former Sables skipper, Dawson, who featured at the 1991 World Cup for Zimbabwe and scored a try in their 55-11 defeat to Scotland, knows all too well how it feels to be at the global rugby showcase for which South Africa’s Springboks are current holders.
The 53-year-old coach has been trying to inculcate that spirit into the Class of 2021 and believes that captain Hilton Mudariki and his troops “are pumped up’’.
He, however, bemoaned the absence of fans.
“It is great to be back at home, but there is no advantage in being at home in the sense that there will be no supporters due to the Covid restrictions . . . we are not allowed to have supporters around.
“But we are really excited and the guys are pumped up. We have been in camp for the last seven to eight weeks and a lot of our pre-games were cancelled, but we had two games against Zambia (last month).
“It was really good for us, we dusted all the cobwebs, dusted all the rust under our armpits and that was really good.’’
Potential banana skin
Although his side overcame Zambia 13-8 and 56-3 in their international friendlies at Harare Sports Club last month, Dawson is wary of the potential banana skin that the Stallions present to the Sables.
The West Africans may not be famed for their rugby exploits, but having beat Cameroon in a Repechage tourney to secure their Pool D place, Dawson expects them to come hunting for a fairy-tale upset.
“Burkina Faso is a totally unknown nation in the game of rugby, but I believe that as long as we play our game, dictate it through our dominance, I think we should really be good.
“I think Burkina Faso are going to come hard at us, they want to prove to the rest of the world that they are a force to reckon with but we are prepared and the guys have been in a bubble for a while.
“We would have loved to also play Tunisia instead of two games against Burkina Faso but disappointments come all the time and because of the Covid-19 situation we have come to expect it all the time’’.
After fluffing some chances in both games against Zambia, which could have seen them register even bigger wins, Dawson wants Mudariki and everyone who will take to the field today to be more clinical.
“I am really confident in the guys that they are going to be accurate, precise and clinical and if all that happens we will be good.
“Obviously it has been a long time since the SuperSport Challenge in 2019 and then the Victoria Cup. In between we had another year of rugby that was off, but it is all about building the team and putting the team together and making sure that we start to gel and I am happy with the squad that we got,’’ Dawson said.
Winger Shingirai Katsvere, who hogged the limelight with four tries as he turned the power on Zambia in a second game in which Zimbabwe touched down 10 times, should once again lead the charge for the Sables.
Barring a surprise underwhelming show, the Sables, whose biggest strength lies in their forward pack, have the likes of Sharks’ loose forward Tinotenda “Blithe’’ Mavesere, fullback Martin Mangongo, Mathew McNab, Cleopas Kundiona and Mudariki — enough quality to see off the Stallions.
Dawson has a healthy substitutes bench that has a host of impact players who can come on and change things around should the initial game plan fail to bear fruit.
Centre Keith Chiwara will have to be precise with his boot should he be tasked with most of the kicking responsibilities.
