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Ngqabutho Moyo Sports Reporter
SOUTH AFRICA’s (Springbok) selector and Bulawayo-born rugby legend, Ian MacIntosh, has encouraged Zimbabwe Rugby Union (ZRU) to put their house in order if they are to restore the country’s sport to its glory days.MacIntosh said Zimbabwe has a lot of talented players and blamed the sport’s failure on the poor national structures.

“What’s important is to have national league structures in place. Zimbabwe has got a lot of talented players with five players in the Springboks team coming from Zimbabwe in the last few years. The players are here and all that’s needed is for the national rugby body to put in place structures,” said MacIntosh.

The Springbok Legends coach however said he was impressed with the rugby structures at school and tertiary level.

He said it was at national level that there were no solid rugby structures and players end up leaving the country.

“I’ve been to a number of school rugby events and I don’t want to lie, Zimbabwe has a lot of good young rugby players but the problem is the young promising players don’t have solid national league structures that create many teams forcing some of these players to turn to neighbouring countries and Europe,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe Sevens Rugby team are back in the country from the Hong Kong Sevens Series.

The Cheetahs were beaten in the final 22-19 by Russia and as a result failed to qualify as a core member of the Sevens Series.

They had got off to a flying start, thrashing Guyana 36-0 and Tonga 41-0.

Although they lost to Spain in the early hours of Saturday morning, the national Sevens side went through as best group runners-up in the pool stages and beat  Brazil 21-14. The Cheetahs then met Spain in the semi-finals and won 21-14 to make the final.

Sevens Rugby president, Donald ‘Basco’ Mangenje said the Cheetahs did the country proud in Hong Kong despite losing to Russia in the final.

“The guys made us proud even though they failed to qualify as a core member of the Sevens Series,” said Mangenje.