By Lawrence Trusida Sports Editor
ZIMBABWE rugby has been invited to field a team in the South African domestic rugby competitions starting next year.
The Sables will be part of the South African domestic competitions next year after they were invited once more by the South African Rugby Union (SARU).
At the peak of Zimbabwean rugby, the Sables used to compete in South Africa’s Premier competition, the Currie Cup, and two years ago they fielded a team in Supersport Challenge playing under the name Zimbabwe Rugby Academy.
The Zimbabwe Rugby Union is happy about the development.
“We are excited to go back to South Africa which is the World’s number 3 team and us participating there will mean our players are getting good game time against the best opponents and in terms of our preparations for the World Cup this will really help,” said Aaron Jani, Zimbabwe Rugby Union President.
The union has also decided to field only locally based players for the national sevens side, the Cheetahs.
“We are going to set up high performance camps for the Cheetahs and going forward we are focusing on locally based players only, and we are going to capacitate them to be competitive just like what they used to be before,” he added.
During the Cheetahs’ glory days when they were part of the World circuit and won a bowl trophy at the Hong Kong sevens, they were made up of only locally based players.
Meanwhile, more good news might be coming to Zimbabwe, with talks ongoing around the tier 2 rugby nations to form a Franchise competition just like the Pro 14 league and Super Rugby.
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