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THE Zimbabwe Rugby Union has given the newly appointed national coaches the mandate to ensure that their teams qualify for the major finals like the World Cup and the Olympics in the next four years.ZRU director of rugby Brighton Chivandire yesterday unveiled the five new coaches for the national teams who had been given four-year terms and pointed out that the assistant coaches will be announced next month.

He said consultations will be made with the head coaches on their choice of support staff before ZRU makes a decision.

Yesterday former Sables assistant coach Cyprian Mandenge was unveiled as the new substantive coach as he takes over from Brendon Dawson whose term expired.

Daniel Hondo, a former Cheetahs captain and assistant coach, is the men’s Sevens’ coach and will take over from long serving Gilbert Nyamutsamba while Abigail Kawonza will be in charge of the women’s Sevens with George Mukorera leading the women’s 15 version who trade as the Pangolins.

St Georges College teacher and former national Under-18 assistant coach Brendon Brider is the new Under-20 coach and Chivandire who is driving the new ZRU rugby vision said each coach has been given a goal to achieve.

“Obviously there were several candidates that applied for these posts and some of them were highly competent coaches and we’re proud to announce that these coaches managed to pass.

“Specific targets have been set for the coaches of the specific national teams.  In general we start with the Sables, the flagship team and we’re looking forward to 2019 qualification for the World Cup and that’s our main aim,” he said.

While the World Cup in Japan will be the main target, ZRU wants the Sables to use events like the Confederation of Africa Rugby Cup as preparations.

“But as we walk the path towards 2019 World Cup, there’re continental and regional tournaments that we’ve to play and the head coach has to be responsible for those. It’s that pathway that we will use to 2019 World Cup,” said Chivandire. He said the Young Sables should bounce back and play at the Junior Rugby World Cup, where they had been missing for the past two editions.

“We’ve not qualified for the Junior Rugby World Cup for the past two years and one of the Key Performance Indicators would be making sure that we qualify for that competition,” said Chivandire.

The men’s sevens team have two very important events this year and the first one being the Hong Kong Sevens for the World Sevens and the African Cup which act as the qualifiers for the Olympic in Rio that Hondo has to target.  – Sportszone