The St John’s College Seven-a-Side Rugby Invitational tournament takes place tomorrow and on Saturday with 480 schoolchildren involved in more than 100 matches over the two days.
National Foods is sponsoring the tournament, which will see teams fielded by 11 schools, including St John’s, Hellenic Academy, Prince Edward, Eaglesvale, Heritage, Oriel, Churchill, Vainona and Mbare Academy.
In addition to providing shields and prizes, National Foods will be providing additional sponsorship to Mbare Academy, which is made up of rugby players from different schools in Mbare. It will take care of lunch and other food requirements of the academy’s players and provide them with T-shirts for use between matches.
National Foods sees great potential for the development of sevens rugby, particularly in high-density suburb schools.
“We believe the potential of this sport is huge. With sevens rugby set to become an Olympic sport in 2016, this could provide Zimbabwe with an opportunity to field the first team at the Olympics since the country’s hockey team brought home gold medals in 1980,” a National Foods spokesperson said.
National Foods is also sponsoring the Old Georgians sevens rugby team, which is now known as the Red Seal Dragons, and full rugby team, now known as the Red Seal Old Georgians.
The tournament being played at St John’s College tomorrow and on Saturday includes teams from all age groups, from Under-14s to Under-19s.
At the end of the second term there will be an inter-provincial competition with Under-19 seven-member teams from around the country competing to select a national team to travel to South Africa for the Craven Week Sevens. The national trials for the sevens rugby teams are scheduled for August 10 and 11.
