Dubai : Sport in Zimbabwe has been affected, but rugby is set to swim against the tide in this African nation, thanks to a slew of measures taken by the authorities.
"Soccer [football] is the number one sport, followed by cricket and then comes rugby. But we are always trying to see how we can push ourselves to the top," Zimbabawe's rugby captain Jacques Leitao told Gulf News on the sidelines of the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens here yesterday.
"Everyone wants to do well as it is a good game and everyone enjoys it. There is a good following for rugby and luckily, there are a lot of good guys playing the sport," Leitao said.
Yesterday, the best of Zimbabwean flair was on offer as the Africans waded past Argentina 24-14 in their opener. But they stumbled against defending champions New Zealand to a 52-0 rout in their second match. "Defending against them [New Zealand] is always a hard task and we did not get too much of the ball either," Leitao said.
However, the game's future has been secured, thanks mainly to the introduction of sevens rugby at the school-level while most of the upper level players have gone on to play their trade either in South Africa or England, and one in far off Germany.
Young talents
"There is a lot of young talent that is coming through and we just need to try and find ways and means to hang on to these young ones. If we can manage to do that then there is a very great future for Zimbabwe rugby," Leitao said. Rugby seems to be an exception to the ongoing political instability that has been much a part of life in Zimbabwe with the national cricket team reaching the very bottom of the ICC Rankings.
"All measures have been taken to get the sevens into schools who organise these annual inter-schools tournaments.
"Hopefully a lot of youngsters can still come through and everything can get better for rugby. We just need the support of everyone around and try and make things work for us and the sport in due course," Leitao said. Leitao tries to lead by example and is one of the few national team players who have used Zimbabwe as a base to ensure a safer progress for the younger ones. He has stuck to his job as a commodity broker in Zimbabwe while also making time to play the game he loves. "We can only get better with time. I would like to see ourselves on the full-time circuit in the next few years. That's certainly one of the goals we are aiming for. So I would love to see our results getting better each year," Leitao said.
"The challenge at the moment, therefore, revolves around holding on to players, especially the younger ones.
"Most of the guys play club rugby, but outside the country. So our major challenge really is to ensure that these players get back to national duty whenever needed," the Zimbabwean skipper said.
