ZIMBABWE under 20 (U20) team kicks off their Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Trophy with a date against Tunisia looking to set the right tonic for the whole tournament with a win before the home crowd at Harare Sports Club tomorrow.
The Rugby Africa-run event being hosted by Zimbabwe features last year’s runners-up Kenya, Namibia, Tunisia and the hosts in a round-robin format in which the top team will be crowned champions.
Zimbabwe U20 rugby team head coach, Shaun De Souza, is happy with the team’s preparations and looking forward to their tournament opener against Tunisia.
“We ended our camp on Thursday, so the guys took a day off and we are coming into the tournament this evening [yesterday] and get ready for Tunisia on Saturday. We are excited, we have a lot of speed which is one of our strengths. We have got height; we have got a bit of weight and we have got the impact, so we are excited,” De Souza told NewsDay Sport.
“Tunisia is an unknown entity, but we have decided that we are just going in there with our best foot forward and not think of what is coming from that end. We have analysed Kenya and Namibia, the teams we are going to play and get ourselves ready for the next two fixtures after Tunisia.”
De Souza does not want to leave anything to chance as any slip-up in the tournament spells doom for his team’s quest to lift the Barthes Trophy and book a place at the 2024 World Rugby U20 Trophy scheduled for Scotland in July.
“For these games it is about getting points, it is a round robin event, you cannot leave it for chance. You have got to make sure you get it done with every game, so we are going to go by our best forward in every game,” he said.
“We definitely want it [qualifying for Scotland], we have worked so hard and getting the one [Barthes camp] at home is token for us and having our fans supporting us is precious and we have to book a ticket to Scotland.”
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The local team’s last leg of competitive preparations was taking part in the Nedbank Rugby Challenge Cup at the end of March.
“The Nedbank Rugby Challenge Cup games are definitely important, it is part of our U20 pathway we then consolidate the team we put it in a high-performance system, we select the chief squad and they play games against each other to enhance the level of competition,” De Souza said.
“It is a grassroots player development offering our selectors and coaches an opportunity to scout players under one venue.”
