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Percival Sizara in JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
IT turned out to be a bitter-sweet day for Old Mutual Zimbabwe rugby teams at the Coca-Cola Craven and Academy Weeks as the Under-18 squad lost while the Academy Under-18 side registered a convincing historic victory at St. Stithians College yesterday.

The Zimbabwe Under-18 team have no one, but themselves to blame for the 34-14 defeat to Eastern Province Country Districts in a match the local boys dominated and kept their opponents on the back-foot for most of the game.

The Academy side, meanwhile, were the heroes of the day as they thumped Border Country Districts 64-15 to record their maiden victory.

“Unfortunately I don’t feel we put in the best performance that the team is capable of . . . too many individual errors and too many missed tackles kind of gives Eastern Province (CD) the position to put points on the board,” Zimbabwe Under-18 coach, Scott Gray, said.

Eastern Province CD led 24-7 by half-time but the Zimbabwe Under-18 responded well and took the challenge to their opponents led by two tries from Mazvitaishe Nyamarebvu and conversions from Leeroy Kagodora.

However, this wasn’t enough as Eastern Province CD had their tries from Jack Allanson (twice), Johannes Lombard, Jason Brown, Matthew Robertson and Claude Jacobs with Nevaldo Fleurs converting twice.

“That’s when (second half) we started to get our fair share of possession and we were able to play with the ball. We have got some very exciting attacking players who have got attacking ability.

“When we have the ball in hand we do look like we can score points but unfortunately we were the ones who stopped ourselves from scoring points today (yesterday),” he said.

On the other field, it was all joy as the Junior Sables Academy side continued Zimbabwe’s overall good win rate against Border CD. Winger Siampunga Sindaza was voted man-of-the-match for his two tries that inspired the Academy side to an impressive 64-15 victory in their debut Academy Week appearance.