×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Sables’ Victoria Cup defence in doubt

Sport
The Zimbabwe senior rugby team — the Sables — might not defend their tri-nation Victoria Cup this year because of lack of funds, an official said yesterday. The Sables were expected to open the defence of their Victoria Cup title with a home game against Uganda at Harare Sports Club on Saturday, a week after […]

The Zimbabwe senior rugby team — the Sables — might not defend their tri-nation Victoria Cup this year because of lack of funds, an official said yesterday.

The Sables were expected to open the defence of their Victoria Cup title with a home game against Uganda at Harare Sports Club on Saturday, a week after they lifted the more prestigious CAR Africa Cup.

“As things stand, we have already pushed back our first match to July 28,” the Sables’ team manager Losson Mtongwiza told NewsDay Sport yesterday. “We are in trouble because we just don’t have the funding to either host or travel away to fulfil matches and we are appealing to the corporate world to come on board.

“If the situation doesn’t improve, we will have no option but to just pull out of the tournament, but this would mean we would be playing less matches this year. We could end up organising a friendly against a South African provincial side towards the end of the year as it is much cheaper to travel there than to East Africa,” he said.

The Victoria Cup which is in its third year is run in a format similar to that of the Tri Nations contested between Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya. Zimbabwe are the defending champions after winning the title last year while Kenya won the inaugural tournament in 2010.

The game against Uganda was supposed to be Zimbabwe’s first in the tourney this year but has since been pushed back and the Sables will now open their campaign against Kenya on July 28.

The financial fortunes of the national senior rugby side were expected to improve after they announced a partnership with a sports and events management company, Dominus Sport.

The team’s financial fortunes have however not improved and the team was recently left with no option but to travel to Tunisia without assistant coach Cyprian Mandenge because of financial constraints.

2012 Victoria Cup Results & Upcoming Fixtures Saturday April 21 2012 Uganda 19 Kenya 5 Saturday April 28 2012 Kenya 12 Uganda 0

Upcoming fixtures Saturday July 21 2012 Zimbabwe v Uganda (Postponed) Saturday July 28 2012 Kenya v Zimbabwe Saturday August 4 2012 Uganda v Zimbabwe Saturday August 11 2012 Zimbabwe v Kenya