Zimpapers Logo

BACK IN BUSINESS . . . Talented Mbare Academy will once again to be the star attraction at the Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival that gets underway at Prince Edward School in Harare today. — (Picture by Tawanda Bote)

Paul Munyuki Sports Reporter
IT’S all systems go when Oriel Boys High and Cranborne Boys High clash today in the opening game of this year’s edition of the Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival, which is largely expected to be one of the best Prince Edward has ever hosted.

As with the tradition of the festival, non-traditional rugby-playing schools and newcomers to the sport will feature today, on Wednesday and Friday while the schools giants take to the field on the other days including Saturday when the curtain comes down on this exciting event.

Jubilee Field will host the big games but Avenues Field will also see Tynwald and Entumbane doing battle, while Goldridge and Marist Nyanga square off at Chapel Field in the opening games of the festival at 8am today.

As has been the case in the past years, the festival has grown both in quality and numbers with more school girls also taking part in the festival that once was an all boys competition.

A total of 30 girls teams have joined this year’s rugby jamboree with seven of them, namely Queen Elizabeth, Herentals, Mt Pleasant, Zengeza 1, Zengeza 4, Hermain Gmeiner (Bindura) and Amhlope (Bulawayo), making a first appearance.

Two girls fixtures have been lined-up for today, first Girls High take on Roosevelt in the main Jubilee Field at 11am while schools league champions Vainona will entertain Mbare’s George Stark on the same field at 2pm with Rhodes Field reserved for the other girls matches.

Only one foreign team, Livingstone Kolobeng College of Botswana, has confirmed participation and the festival promises to be an even more exciting event despite the fact that Windhoek Technical School of Namibia, Die Anker from South Africa and Botswana Under-19 have indicated they will not be able to turn up for the jamboree.

However, it is the local schools that most of the rugby enthusiasts at the event will be interested in and definitely this year, the organisers have paired teams strength on strength as some of the big fixtures will include the PE and Peterhouse clash tomorrow, and the Churchill versus Falcon College duel on the same day.

On Thursday, the PE Tigers go up against the Churchill Bulldogs in what should be an explosive contest at 3pm.

Matches will take place throughout the week at five grounds at PE and neighbouring Allan Wilson.

The fields are Jubilee, Avenues, Chapel, Rhodes and Sable. Some of the big clashes in store at the rugby fiesta are the fixtures between St George’s College and St John’s College in the final game of the day on Thursday and the 11:30am game between Kyle College and Eaglesvale on the same day.

Festival director Sebastian Garikai says there’s a big reason behind this move.

“The reason we have teams paired strength on strength is to make sure that selectors would use this event as a preliminary selection platform for those teams and players that will then go on to represent Zimbabwe in the various competitions.

“We have the youth tournaments played in South Africa from the Under-13s to Under-18s and despite the fact that provincial and national trials will be held according to the Zimbabwe Rugby Union calender, we as Prince Edward and the hosts of this festival felt we have a role to play as well,” said the Sables team manager.

Of course, over the past years there have been a number of mismatches in terms of team strengths and this is one thing Prince Edward would like to avoid inorder to increase excitement and improve the quality of competition. New teams in the boys category include Atexis, Mbare Bulls Rugby Academy, Budiriro 1 High School and Hatcliffe Rugby Academy that are expected to make their debut appearances, while Loxely and St Paul’s Musami of Murewa are making a return in the boys section, having missed out over the last few years.