The ManicaPost
Tafadzwa Tichawangana Sports Correspondent
MUTASA district continues to lead the way in girls’ rugby development with Manicaland’s two representatives at the 2018 Dairibord schools rugby festival coming from the district.
The 2018 Dairibord schools rugby festival, which started on Monday and ends tomorrow (Saturday) is one of the biggest rugby festivals in the world with 150 schools from Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa taking part.
Sahumani and Muterere both from Honde Valley in Mutasa district are among the 34 girls teams taking part at this year’s festival.
Sahumani has been the most successful school from Mutasa district since their debut at the festival last year.
Following their debut appearance, four Sahumani girls were selected for the Zimbabwe Under-18 girls’ team.
In their opening games on Monday, Sahumani lost 5-7 to Mabvuku and 10-15 to Oriel Girls High.
They went on to pick up back to back wins on Wednesday beating Kambuzuma 2 High School and Kambuzuma 1 High School with identical score lines of 22-0.
Sahumani’s performance caught the attention of national selectors yet again with Catherine Muranganwa, Mavis Zunga & Mary Birwa all selected to be part of the Zimbabwe girls Under-18 team that will take part in the Craven week in South Africa later in the year.
Privilege Mabhozhera and Fortunate Nyamavanga who were selected for the Zimbabwe Under-18 team last year but failed to travel to South Africa after failing to secure travel documents successfully retained their places in the Zimbabwe Under-18 squad.
Muterere High School who were also making a return to the festival this year lost both their games. They lost 5-0 to Glen View 1 and 35-0 to Mufakose on Monday and Wednesday respectively. Manicaland Rugby Board chairman Josiah Borerwe was pleased with the girls’ performance.
“I am very proud of the girls’ performance. Regardless of their background, the Sahumani girls are so confident, vociferous and robust.
They have put our province on the map. We are very happy because we have five of our girls selected into the national Under-18 team.
“We are happy at the rate at which rugby is growing in the province but we are not done yet. We want every district from the province to be represented at future festivals.
As a board, we are concerned that the larger districts such as Buhera and Nyanga are not well represented,” he said.
