Mbachi Mutukula-Maregere Sports Reporter
Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival director Sebastian Garikai believes this year’s event will be the biggest as the number of participating teams has now increased. The seven-day festival at Prince Edward is scheduled to get underway next Monday. The number of participating schools has increased from 168 to 186.

“We are very happy with the increase of the participants and that the festival is growing, we now have teams which never used to play the game, coming up for the event.

“The other important thing is that the Union is looking at introducing a database which will be tracking teams. There will be follow-ups on all our local teams, to see if they are progressing,” said Garikai.

He said this year they only have two foreign teams from Botswana.

“The number of foreign teams has gone down but we have more local teams than last year and we are very happy with that as this means we are developing more future rugby players.

“Our preparations are going well and we have paired the teams from strength to strength, to give the selectors a chance of choosing the potential players to represent our nation well,” said Garikai.

There will be 30 girls’ teams participating. Some of the girls teams who expected to play are champions Vainona, Girls High, Mbare, Hatfield, George Stark, Goromozi, Queen Elizabeth, Roosevelt and Mount Present. Garikai said more than 20 international referees from across the continent will officiate at the tourney.

“We are going to test all the teams and all the participants will be required to attend the educational workshops every day.

“We are glad that our sponsor Dairibord are happy and have said they will continue to sponsor the festival, although at the moment they cannot tell us the amount of money they will spend.”

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