By Kalumiana Kalumiana
Zambia Rugby national team coach Lawrence Njovu has taken some positives from Saturday’s 25-19 home loss to Zimbabwe in the Zambezi Challenge at Leopards Hill Polocrosse Club in Lusaka.
The match was the final leg of their two-match friendly series that saw Zimbabwe complete back-to-back victories over Zambia after humbling them with a 70-15 home win in the first leg of Zambezi Challenge played on May 4 in Harare.
Njovu said in a post-match interview that Zambia needs more international matches for them to be promoted from the second tier of African rugby to the elite stage where Zimbabwe plays.
“Great performance even though the results have gone the opposite way. The boys put up a good fight looking at where we are coming from where we lost 70-15,” Njovu said. “It was a disgrace, it was shameful but today the boys came to the party. We could have won it but we wasted a lot of chances.”
Zimbabwe set the pace from start to finish in the match and took a 17-7 halftime lead.
Hilton Mudariki, Bornwell Gwinji and Dion Khumalo scored a try each for Zimbabwe while Lenience Tambwera successfully kicked two conversations and two penalties.
Zambia crossed the line courtesy of a try each by Rodgers Mukupa, Lawrence Lesa and Berthlock Sikaona while Alex Mwewa slotted in two conversations.
“I think we belong to the big club and it is unfortunate we are in the Silver Cup. We need to go back to the Gold Cup where we are supposed to be if we are to compete with the best in Africa,” said Njovu said. “Zimbabwe are number one in Africa and we can compete and stand toe-to-toe with them. We need to have more game time and we can’t be playing 1 or 2 games in a year. The fortune thing is we have been invited by Botswana to play them in August so hopefully we can finally build from there.”
