FEATURE: African countries need to play more competitive games – Zimbabwe rugby legend Tsimba

Zimbabwe rugby legend Tsimba offers development advice

By Michael Sherman

JOHANNESBURG, June 11 (ANA) – The time is right to help usher in a new age of rugby development in Africa, according to Zimbabwean World Rugby Hall of Fame member Kennedy Tsimba.

The 46-year-old is currently the head coach at the University of Pretoria Young Guns – the new recruits for the Varsity Cup, and Bulls Under-20 side.

The former Free State Cheetahs and Blue Bulls flyhalf is widely regarded as the best rugby talent ever produced by Zimbabwe, as he achieved incredible success in South Africa from 1999 to 2007. Tsimba was the fastest player to score 1000 points in all competitions in South Africa (Currie Cup, Vodacom Cup and Super Rugby).

Tsimba offered some sage advice for the smaller African rugby nations on Friday.

“Covid-19 has probably helped bring the game closer to the African continent. Before there was a lot of material and IP (intellectual property), the African countries could not get because it was also based in the power countries like South Africa, New Zealand and England,” Tsimba told African News Agency.

“The IP content would be of coaches and development. It’s not that these countries didn’t want to share, but it would just be too expensive to say book a flight to Nigeria and do a session with the coaches.

“Covid has shown that digital platforms can really help bring those countries closer together, and you’re getting much more material.”

In theory, it sounds easy – better coaches will bring improved results, but Tsimba points out the situation in countries like Kenya and Uganda is much more complicated.

“The administrators have to figure out how they can get competitive matches, they have the Africa Victoria Cup [Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe]. They themselves have to try and structure tournaments that they can play more regularly.

“We’re talking about Kenya who are on the rise, Uganda and countries like Madagascar where rugby has a huge following. If they come together with sponsors, instead of just playing once-off games which are normally World Cup qualifiers – they need to generate more tournaments. Covid has shown that teams can go into a bubble where all teams can play in one country and play each other over a short period. They need way more competitive games, to play other African countries once a year is not good enough.”

With the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa around the corner, starting next month – Tsimba recalled when he was a young player and the touring nations would play the smaller African rugby countries. Of course this is not feasible during the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s a great idea to revisit in the future.

“When we were still youngsters coming up, every tour that came to South Africa, that national team would stop in Zimbabwe and play a game. We played Wales, Italy and Scotland. It would be fairly competitive, and that hasn’t really happened since 1997 or so.

“That gap [between the smaller African rugby nations] has then widened. The standard has dropped because they aren’t playing against world class opponents. Now, what happens is that they only get to play these world class opponents at a World Cup. And that’s almost suicide because you can’t have Zimbabwe or Namibia playing New Zealand or South Africa and expect a positive result.”

South Africa too, could play a big part in developing the sport on the continent – but that too was simpler in theory than in practice.

“Some of the unions, incorporating players into their franchises from Namibia, Kenya or wherever – that would be of great assistance. We see what France has done with Georgia, Spain and Portugal – all the players that are good in those small countries go and play in the French Leagues. Here it doesn’t work in those systematic ways because we have our own transformation policies, so it’s not as simple as that.

“South Africa has tried this, but teams are financially strapped.”

The onus then is on the African nation to help find their players contracts abroad, and once again – this path is also tricky explained Tsimba.

“So it’s up to them [the smaller African nations] to be more innovative in how they get more game time. A lot of them think that they don’t want to try and get their players provincial contracts abroad because they think they’ll lose the player, but it’s not that – you’re empowering him.

“He will then be obliged to come back and represent the country because the country got him the contract. It’s an intricate situation, because most local unions aren’t doing much for the players. The players then just feel like they have to fend for themselves. And then if a player say gets a contract in Germany, they will not look back.”

A budget-friendly option could well be the only solution.

“Those [African] unions can maybe invest time in coming to South Africa and gain some of the knowledge and expertise of the administrative part of it. The administrators can then learn how to attract players, generate extra competitions and create networks that can empower those African countries.”

Again, the obvious solution would seem for the African Unions to hire well-known coaches to improve the structures in place. Tsimba, however, cited the attempts of Zimbabwe to hire former Springboks coach Peter de Villiers in 2018 and how that experiment failed.

“Zimbabwe tried it with Peter de Villiers. But, it doesn’t just work. If you have a professional coach that goes to an amateur environment, it is very difficult. As a coach you become a manager, a physio, you’re their mentor – you’re everything.

“Some even have to put their hands in their own pockets and pay for things, and that’s what the game is like in those amateur environments. For a professional coach to give up a steady salary to go there, it’s difficult. Even in soccer you’ve seen, coaches go there and there are always payment issues. The thinking is by bringing a foreign coach, you’re bringing success. But actually in those environments, the most important product is the players.”

In fact, countries like Zimbabwe do indeed have all the resources they need to grow the game – but approaching it in a strategic manner is the key said Tsimba.

“We saw with the Brazilian coach that came to coach Bafana Bafana [Carlos Alberto Parreira in 2009 and 2010], that giving him a huge salary doesn’t bring success. It has to be the players first. In a professional environment, you need a strong-minded coach.

“But you have to look at everything in context, if it’s amateur-led you need an amateur coach. But what you can do is, say you hire an amateur coach in Kenya – you send him away to be mentored by someone like Jake White. He spends most of the year with him, shadowing him. This system is not even complicated, it’s just that you need to know them so you can take them back, and it actually costs no money. But if you don’t have that content, you’ll never know how to prepare your sessions and prioritise how you build that knowledge into creating competitions for players. That would be more cost effective.”

It’s clear to see then, that there is massive potential in Africa to produce bigger rugby-playing nations – and the smaller unions, and indeed Rugby Africa, would do well to heed the advice of great rugby minds like Tsimba. – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman