ASHER MOYO
SPORTS REPORTER
CHIPINGE –All roads lead to Chipinge tomorrow (Saturday) for a mini Rugby Sevens Festival at Chipinge Primary School.
The game is making a comeback to the farming town after two decades -thanks to former Manicaland Rugby Board Chairman, Josiah Borerwe who formed the Chipinge District Rugby Board in 2021 who are the organizers of the fiesta.
Kick-off time is 10am.
Eight teams have confirmed their participation and these include Chipinge Club, Chimanimani Hurricanes, Eastern Giants, Bateleurs, Rockstars, MSC Juniors, Spartans and Wolves.
Chipinge Rugby Board chairman, Tulani Tondhlana confirmed the news to The Midweek Sport and said it’s all systems go.
“As a district we have been building our rugby base through NAPH and NASH as well as tertiary students. From NAPH side, Matione Primary School has done very well, they were last year’s provincial champions and this year they were second.
“As for NASH we are still working on strengthening our teams as well as growing the sport in most schools. At club level we now have a sevens team and we are also building on the 15s,” he said.
Tondhlana said the Chipinge Rugby Festival will be an annual event on the sporting calendar.
“We are expecting 8 teams and this will be an annual event beginning this year. We are still looking around for partners to sponsor our tournament, but its all systems go for tomorrow’s event,” he said.
Manicaland Rugby Board chairman, Moss Kapumha said they are taking the sport to Chipinge to promote it in the district.
“After the Super 7s tournament we had at MSC, we are taking the game to Chipinge District to promote their team which failed to travel to Mutare due to harmonised elections. This is the right time to go there and take the sport to the people before schools open.
“This is going to be the first Rugby festival in Chipinge in over 2 decades. We are also glad that Chimanimani Hurricanes, a newly formed club is part of this festival. After this festival, the games return to Mutare, before we head to Makoni Rugby Club in Rusape at the end of September.
“We also have games that will be played in Dangamvura in October before finishing off with Honde Valley in November,” he said.
Asked about the state of rugby in the province, Kapumha said the game is progressing well.
“Since we got into office, the progress has been steady. We concentrated more on setting up the administration process, procedures and compliance issues with ZRU, SRC and working on the provincial structures.
“I am glad we finished the year as arguably second best run province in Zimbabwe after Harare. We also maintained our provision teams from Women’s teams friendlies vs Harare Province.
“We also participated in the National Nedbank challenge both Men’s and Women’s teams in Harare for 15s. We also hosted Harare Province U-20 Mens and Women’s at Sports Club.
“Mutare Sports Club went to participate at the Zambia 7s Independence Cup and Lesotho Gerald Blessed 7s Cup and won both for the first time,” said Kapumha.
