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Brandon Moyo, [email protected]

DEFENDING Champions Matabeleland Warriors and current log leaders Old, Miltonians (OMs) have shown no signs of stopping after their respective wins on week eight of the 2024 Bulawayo Metropolitan Rugby Football Board (BMRFB) Archer Clothing Rugby League at Hartsfield Rugby Grounds on Saturday afternoon.

Warriors made it two wins on the trot in the second half of the league while the high-flying OMs have maintained their 100 percent unbeaten run as they look to secure the coveted silverware. A young Warriors squad that missed most of their regular first-team players proved too strong for Bulldogs, walloping them 59-5 while OMs pummelled Highlanders 47-0 to maintain their position at the top of the standings.

With OMs remaining the only side yet to taste defeat thus far, they still maintain their four-point lead at the top of the standings with 29 points as their juggernaut continues to roll. The chasing Warriors are on 25 points.

OMs gaffer, Victor Chiwara said despite not playing the best of rugby on Saturday, he is happy that his side managed to collect maximum points and they will keep working hard as the season draws towards its final stages.

“A win is a win, we will always take the five points but performance-wise, it wasn’t the best. It seems when we always play a bit of a niggle team, our levels drop a little bit but we will take the win, it’s five points. We need to keep doing what we are doing, keep focusing on ourselves,and get better like I have always said, we need to have a bigger-picture outlook, it’s the first year of our project and we just keep growing and keep trying to get better,” said Chiwara.

Warriors head coach, Aubrey Dube said he believes there is all to play for going forward and will be taking each game as a final. Dube was pleased with the way his young side played and believes the future looks good for his team.

“We are very happy, we used a very young side. Those are schoolboys, we rotated our side and we had some boys from Milton and Plumtree, our next year’s Under-21s. We got the results that we wanted. We now have the depth that we were seeking, we have a good squad now and actually, we gave our senior players a break. It’s heating up, but we will fight on until the end, we still stand a chance,” said Dube.

As OMs and Warriors set the pace at the top of the standings, the battle for third place has also gotten interesting with Panthers – who were on a bye this week – maintaining their number three position after Highlanders and Bulldogs failed to capitalise.

Panthers are on 11 points while the black and white army remained in position four with eight points. Bulldogs continue to anchor the standings with six points.

For Highlanders coach, Silethokuhle “Slater” Ndlovu, the team’s failure to train continues to hurt them week in and week out. But, Ndlovu believes they will get the winning formula.

“As I always say, it’s lack of training. Some of the guys here are coming from Gweru and we don’t train together and the guys here, not everyone comes up for training, some will be tied with work while others are at school. The worst thing is that we didn’t have a kicker, we got so many penalties on their half but just because the kicker wasn’t too sure that he was going to make it, so that’s why we ended up opting to run the ball.

“It’s not too bad though, but next week’s match is our bigger picture. We knew such things would happen, but I believe we are still building, it’s work in progress, I don’t blame my guys for this defeat, OMs have been together for some time but on our side, we have new faces every week, but we are getting there,” said Ndlovu.

Despite results not coming their way, Bulldogs coach, Newman Hlatshwayo believes that in their past encounter, everything went “right” for them in terms of what they had planned.

“Everything went right for us in terms of what we had planned. We had prepared to work on our defence and if you look at the game in the second half, we managed to shut down Warriors from putting in points and in our previous game against them, we had less numbers and we managed to pick up our numbers this time around, so everything has gone right for us this time around,” said Hlatshwayo.

League action resumes this coming Saturday with fixtures yet to be confirmed.—@brandon_malvin