Fungai Muderere
FOR the fourth consecutive year South African rugby experts, including two former Springboks players, head back to Falcon College in Esigodini for the annual AMG Global Junior Rugby Coaching Festival which runs from Friday to Sunday.
The four coaches, Greg Miller, Jacques Botes, Marius Hurter, a member of the 1995 Rugby World Cup winning Springboks squad and another former Bok Delarey du Preez are all from the Academy of Rugby.
Locals, Brendan Dawson and Schalk Ferreira, will assist the South Africans in imparting knowledge to the youngsters during the fiesta.
AMG Global, who have been the principal sponsors of the festival since its inception in 2016 are once again the main bankrollers of the fiesta this year, with the other funding coming from Zimbabwe Lithium and Fawcett Security.
Orlando Fernandes, the festival director, indicated that five high schools as well as nine primary schools had so far confirmed their participation. Falcon College, Lomagundi, Hillcrest, Gateway and Northlea are entering their Under-14s while Admiral Tait, Whitestone, Petra, Heritage, Kyle College Preparatory School, Highlands, Welton, Goldridge, Wise Owl are entering their Under-13 age groups.
This year, the projected number of players participating is 270 with 45 coaches.
As has been the case over the years, the youngsters will get coaching in the morning before they play coached matches in the afternoon.
On Friday, a formal dinner will be held in Bulawayo for coaches and other officials where Falcon College headmaster Reginald Querl, a representative from AMG Global as well as the Zimbabwe Rugby Union (ZRU) vice-president south Martin Shone will be present.
