GOODWILL ZUNIDZA, Harare
Controversy is brewing in rugby circles after the Union dispatched a virtual Old Georgians club side masquerading as the national sevens team to the Kenya Safari 7s taking place this weekend.
The Cheetahs, as the Zimbabwe Sevens team is called, are pooled against Germany, Kenya and Burkina Faso’s Stallions in Group A of the 12-team fiesta.
Uganda and Spain have sent their full-strength sides and will square off in Group C while South Africa Academy headlines Group B.
Against such formidable opponents the hastily-assembled Cheetahs appear clearly headed for slaughter leaving local analysts to chide the Zimbabwe Rugby Union for treating the annual draw card lightly.
Games kick off on Saturday morning at the Nyayo National Stadium in Nairobi with the Cheetahs Academy as it will be called, but in reality the Old Georgians sevens outfit, taking to the park against the much-vaunted home side, Kenyan senior men’s team, Shujaa.
Shujaa recently returned victorious from a Sevens tournament in Canada.
Interestingly one of two Zimbabwean-raised players based in Canada, Matthew Owuru, starred for Canada in that tournament while his brother James – who is on Edmonton Rugby Club’s books – opened up his future for Zimbabwe but has up to yet been ignored.
Instead, stand-in Cheetahs coach Graham Kaulback, who is the Old Georgians gaffer, narrowed his selection to locally-based players featuring at an invitational tournament staged at Harare Sports Club a fortnight ago.
All but one of the names Kaulback came up with are from his own club which has made many to wonder why he needed an elaborate eight-team event to pick his own players.
The Dragons won the HSC sevens tournament after piping a youthful Pitbulls in the final.
None of the Pitballs players were deemed good enough for a place in the Cheetahs squad.
A thorough OGs combination is made complete with the addition of team medic Margie Gibson travelling as the physiotherapist while Taffy Mhende is doubling as tour manager and Kaulback’s assistant, roles that don’t add up.
It is not the first time that Old Georgians have curiously emerged to fulfill national team assignments.
The Groombridge-based side who won the last three league championships before Covid-19 disrupted sport early last year, were again handed the ticket to stand in for the Cheetahs at the Dubai International Sevens in 2016.
ZRU admitted at the time to have failed to raise the required funds to register the national team for the extravaganza and accepted OGs’ application to step in.
However, the arrangement remained in place as the red-shirted side has proceeded to attend every edition of the Dubai Sevens since then.
They are believed to have already plunged into preparations for this year’s edition that explodes each year in the last weekend of November with the team’s preparations reaching a crescendo at the two-day Safari Sevens gala in Kenya.
The Dubai Sevens are a particularly major attraction this year as they occupy the backdrop of the ongoing World Dubai Expo that began this month and runs until April, 2022.
A press conference convened by the Cheetahs management on Wednesday to help shed light was abandoned at the last minute and the handful of journalists that had turned up only received unconvincing assurances from Kaulback that the “Cheetahs” would hold their own.
The team received a minor boost on the eve of their departure when a Borrowdale eatery Sable Chicken chipped in with an undisclosed amount of sponsorship.
Indefatigable fans were left to spot the irony of the Cheetahs’ poor preparations and the link with a brand named after a feebler animal to come up with the ‘Sable Chicken Cheetahs’ acronym.
More pessimistic fans predicted only a single win for the Harareans over the Stallions whose 15s side was massacred by the Sables in back-to-back ties of the ongoing 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifiers.
The rest of teams competing at the Safari Sevens include Samurai (New Zealand), KCB (Uganda), Red Wailers, Marans and Chipu 7s.
