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Tinashe Kusema Zimpapers Sports Hub

THE last 48 hours have been rather tranquil for Shaun De Souza and his Zimbabwe Junior Sables unit.

Located in Greendale’s plush suburbs, a stone’s throw away from the Central Business District, Ezulwini Villa Hotel has been playing host to the Zimbabwe Under-20 squad.

And, it here that Zimbabwe’s 28-man squad has been largely holed up for the past two days to recharge their batteries ahead of their crunch Barthes Trophy tie against Kenya.

The match will be held at Harare Sports Club’s Machinery Exchange Stadium at 3pm, with victors crowned champion and, more importantly, earning themselves a berth at the Junior World Trophy in Scotland.

For De Souza it was importantly for his boys to take their foot off the pedal a bit as they got the day off on Thursday after which they had a light gym and field sessions.

The team them capped it off with a night out at the secret venue last night.

“Managing the players’ fitness and mental was crucial and we, as a technical team, decided to give them the day off to heal and recuperate,” said De Souza.

“Sunday’s game is very important and has been turned into a final of sorts we both (Zimbabwe and Kenya) are undefeated and, as such, whoever wins will be crowned champion.

“It is not entirely a day off as we will use this time for video review, for both our two matches and the Kenya games.

“We will then have an outing in the evening (last night) for the team to just relax, eat and bond a little more,” he said.

But, that was yesterday.

Today, all four participating teams resume their preparations for the tournament’s third and final matchday with the customary captain’s run.

All four teams will get one last run at the match venue ahead of tomorrow’s fixtures where Namibia and Tunisia will square up at noon with next year’s rankings at stake.

The two teams are virtually out of the running for the Barthes Trophy after back-to-back defeats to both Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Namibia went down 43-21 to Kenya during their first match of the tournament after which they gave hosts Zimbabwe a good run for the money during their 35-23 defeat.

Tunisia were thoroughly beaten 46-21 by the Junior Sables and were then thrashed 56-17 by Kenya.

Tomorrow’s main game, however, will see the two unbeaten sides Zimbabwe and Kenya duke it out for the honours.

Kenya are out for blood and De Souza has refused to take them lightly, identifying the duo of Michael Wamalwa and Bett Kipchirchir as the key danger men from the East African’s unit.

“It is definitely going to be a tough game, Kenya have managed to retain something like nine players and they will be very motivated to come here and beat us at home,” said De Souza.

“We have taken the title away from them, the last two years, at home and this will be a very personal game for them.

“Their centres, number 12 and 13 (Wamalwa and Kipchirchir), are big guys and very instrumental to their overall game plan.

“We will need to neutralise and minimise the damage they cause,” he said.