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ZIMBABWE senior rugby team captain Hilton Mudariki and veteran loose forward Biselele Tshamala will have an opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the world’s former, current and rising rugby stars during the second edition of the Rugby Tens Championship in South Africa. 

The Sables duo will feature alongside other notable athletes from over 22 nations, including recently crowned Rugby World Cup Sevens champions Fiji, HSBC Rugby Sevens World Series holders Australia, and fellow Africans Kenya, Uganda and hosts South Africa. 

Mudariki said he was very excited to feature in this year’s competition which will feature some of the world’s leading players from both the sevens and fifteens formats of the game. 

“It’s a real honour to be named to play in the Rugby 10s Championship. I was actually first approached last year but because of Covid-19 and the travel restrictions which were in place around the world I was not able to travel to Portugal for last year’s edition,” Mudariki said in an interview with ZimSportLive.

“I’m very excited to be part of this year’s edition and to play with ad against some of the best players in the world,” he said.

Mudariki captained the Sables during the 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifiers while he is also a former captain of the national rugby sevens side, the Cheetahs.

Tshamala is also one of the longest serving players in the current Sables squad, having made his debut for the national fifteens rugby side and the Cheetahs in 2012, winning several accolades in his glittering career. 

He won the Africa Cup with the Cheetahs and played in the Sevens World Cup in San Francisco four years ago and was also part of the Sables’ Victoria Cup winning squad two years ago. 

The Rugby Tens Championship which will feature five franchises — Balkans Honey Badgers, Blue Bulls Rugby Union, Cape Town Wild Dogs, San Clemente Rhinos, and Serengeti Elephants. 

The teams will compete in the men, women, and Under-18 boys and girls categories over two back-to-back rounds in the cities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch. 

The Pretoria round will be held on October 7-8 while the Stellenbosch round will be on October 14-15.