Zimbabwe’s Sevens Rugby team will open their campaign at the Middelburg Sevens Rugby tournament in South Africa today with two tough matches against South African provincial sides.
Report by Daniel Nhakaniso The Gilbert Nyamutsamba-coached side will kick start their campaign against Western Province at 3:30pm today before taking on the South African Defence Forces side later today.
Having avoided giants South Africa and Wales, the Cheetahs will be favourites to progress to the latter stages of the competition and repeat their performance last year when they reached the final before eventually losing 21-6 to the South Africans.
Zimbabwe’s second string side, the Goshawks, will have a tough opening fixture when they clash with the Blue Bulls in their first match. Most of the players in the Goshawks side will be eager to impress so that they are considered for promotion into the senior side ahead of the 2013 IRB Sevens Rugby World Cup qualifiers in Morocco next weekend.
Meanwhile, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) on Wednesday named a star-studded Springbok Sevens squad of 16 players for the warm-up tournament.
The side includes the IRB International Sevens Player Cecil Afrika and experienced players like Branco du Preez and Kyle Brown.
Promising wing Tshotsho Mbovane makes a return to the squad after he was sidelined for a long period because of a knee injury. Paul Treu, the Springbok Sevens coach, said his squad was looking forward to getting their season underway in Middelburg.
Springbok Sevens squad: Kyle Brown, Chris Dry, Steven Hunt, Cheslin Kolbe, Paul Delport, Cecil Afrika, Tshotsho Mbovane, Branco du Preez, Stephan Dippenaar, Kwagga Smith, Frankie Horne, Craig Barry, Cornal Hendricks, Bernardo Botha, Pieter Engelbrecht, Reuben Johannes.
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