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A scene from the 2015 Dairibord Rugby Festival

It’s rugger time again.

THE start of the Prince Edward Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival means that Zimbabwe will enjoy 10 successive days of youth rugby — at both international and local levels — with the annual schools jamboree running concurrently with the World Rugby Under-20 Trophy. There has been a change to this year’s edition as traditional rugby giants will play on Monday, Thursday and Saturday.Organisers of the Dairibord Festival have moved away from the traditional set-up where game start on Monday as the non-traditional rugby playing schools will open the show on Sunday.

Yes, those traditionally marginalised schools have been brought to the party and they are not yet expected to battle it out with the power houses with decades of winning traditions to uphold.

But we are sure that within a couple of years the new schools will be making their presence felt alongside the big names.

Wednesday will see primary schools taking to the field. All the future hit predictions will be picked out that day.

We are sure the high school coaches will be watching and picking the kids that they want on their team over the next few years. On that same day that the World Rugby Under-20 Trophy teams play in Match Day Three before their final round of games the following Sunday.

The next set of games in the World Rugby Under-20 Trophy that started on Tuesday are set for tomorrow at Harare Sports Club starting at 10am while the Dairibord Festival will run for a week starting on Sunday.

Zimbabwe take on Uruguay at midday in the second game of the day with the Pacific Ocean derby getting the day underway as Fiji and Samoa battle at 10am. Group B games will see Spain, who beat Hong Kong on Tuesday, taking on Namibia, who upset the United States in the first game, at 2pm before the main clash of the day between the United States and Hong Kong at 4pm.

“We had to structure the festival dates in such a way that we ran concurrently with the World Rugby Under-20 tournament without causing a counter-attraction because as the rugby family we have to complement each other.

“So on Wednesday high schools will take a break as this is also the same day that round three of the international tournament will be taking place but from Thursday we will revert to our traditional set-up,” said festival director Tawanda Jimu.

In their build-up to the clash against Prince Edward, Churchill face Botswana in their first game on Monday before taking on the Dragons of St George’s College.

The Tigers open their account with a date against lowly Christian Brothers College before taking on rising giants Kyle College on Thursday, the same day that the Mad Dogs of Falcon College battle against St John’s College.

However, the biggest absentee from this year’s festival will be powerhouse Peterhouse College who indicated they will not be taking part.

Not to be outdone, none rugby playing kids will also be out in full force to cheer the winners and commiserate with the losers.

CLS will be there so make sure that later on in life you too can tell everyone that you were present at the premier schools event of 2016. See you there! – Herald Sports/Cool Lifestyle Writer