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Brighton Chivandire

Paul Munyuki Sports Reporter
IT’S back to 2006 for local rugby after the Zimbabwe Rugby Union took over the administration of the domestic league and adopted regional leagues.The national league has been abandoned.

Over the last four years, the National Rugby League had been running the competition, but this year the countrywide league has been set aside with the provincial leagues taking over.

The ZRU, represented by director of rugby Brighton Chivandire and executive vice-president Colleen de Jong, indicated that they were taking over the leagues.

In a meeting on Wednesday night at Old Hararians Sports Club, club representatives indicated they will not be able to foot travelling and accommodation expenses without league sponsorship. This means Harare clubs will play in their provinces and the same goes for Bulawayo. The most affected teams will be Mutare (Manicaland), Gweru and Zvishavane Bulls (Midlands) who are the only top-flight sides in their provinces.

Harare has the biggest number of top-flight clubs, eight, followed by Bulawayo with four, Gweru has one and so does Mutare and Zvishavane.

Chivandire told The Herald that the league will be on this year but not under the flag of the National Rugby League that was administered by Noddy Kanyangarara as chairman.

“There definitely will be a league this year but it will not be the NRL,” said Chivandire.

“The clubs that comprised the NRL last year are the same clubs and we have agreed in principle to have provincial leagues because the clubs will not be able to travel out of town. We presented the clubs with our expectations, in line with the international structure, so that we work on what we think is the best for Zimbabwean rugby.”

After Delta Beverages pulled out of rugby sponsorship at the end of 2013, clubs did not receive their prize packages as this was the money the NRL administrators used to run the first half of the 2014 season. Chivandire said the ZRU would start announcing national team coaches from Monday and the process of coach appointment would be completed by next Friday.

“The chairman of the appointments committee is still making recommendations and reports to the board (ZRU) but it would not be a surprise that we start naming the successful candidates by Monday.

“We were happy with the response from the interested coaches, both in terms of numbers and quality, but we are not in a rush to name them and I am sure by next Friday we would have appointed all the national coaches.

“We have timeliness with which we are working and so far we are on course,” said Chivandire.