FQM Rugby 7's

This week Saturday Amano's 7s rugby team traveled all the way to Simba for this year's First Quantum 7's Tournament. We arrived pretty early to run some drills, went through the opening introductions and then our games began. We started our first game against the government schools' first place FQM winners Temweni and they were really physical and based most of their attack on going straight into contact; but even though they were bigger than us, we used our wingers to burn them out on the wing, which led us to win the first game 24-0. Our second game was against Masaiti, who were a lot less physical, but had a tendency to go for a lot of high tackles, but thankfully not a lot of the boys were injured and we managed to win that game 12-0. Our third game again was against another government school called Kansenshi, whom we had faced before [last year]. So we already knew their way of play and because of that we were able to take hold of the game without any troubles and win the game 29-0.

Daniel contributed well at scrum half - 1 try and 7 conversions

Mark winning another line out against Temweni

Then for our fourth game we went against fellow ISAZ school Simba, who we had played several times. Even though they were physical as usual, we had mastered their way of play and won that game 24-0. We then thought we were progressing into the final, yet in reality it was to the semi against Chengelo whom we were yet to beat in rugby. We began that game tired, we stumbled a couple of times and Chengelo almost capitalised on the mistakes, but during half time we had a strong and motivational talk from Mr Grove and went back into the second half strong and managed to win that game 12-0. For the finals we went against the reigning champ’s Trident, which seemed to have had a tougher morning than us. Even though we were an inexperienced team we had managed to get to the finals and this really motivated us most that we could win the cup. We started the game with our substitutes on because most of the main players were badly sore.

That was a bad idea as within opening minutes Trident came storming down the line in a violent action and scored the first try. They then scored a second one quickly before we went on to bring all the main players. The game settled down a bit, but not by much because Trident were used to playing a more furious rugby and the boys were not so they took advantage. They went in with everything they deemed usual against us and hurt us then when half time came Mr Grove gave us a heavy-duty motivational speech. Which sent us into the second half stronger than ever, our organisation and teamwork improved phenomenally. We then managed to score a try and conversion which got us back in the race, but after a fumble on the try line we were left to defend a scrum. We managed to win the scrum and had strong runners ready to burn out Trident, but then after one fumble from one of our players Trident hit us strong, we managed to hold but with one foul call from the ref the Trident team scored another try and won that game 17-6.

James on a foray through Chengelo

Fungai striving for his try against Chengelo

 This made us finish second overall. I believe personally that the boys gave it all they had and even though we had a crushing defeat they gave it their best. I personally would like to thank the whole team because this was for most players the first time being part of anything this physical and for them to come out second is phenomenal. I would also like to thank James, Paul, Mwansa, Musonda, Tarisai, Luyando, Daniel, Mark and Cholwe for been the best team I could ask for. Also not to forget Mr Grove for holding us strong and for the motivational speeches and most importantly God, for allowing a bunch of newbies to come from zero and come out second in our biggest school boy rugby tournament. This not only shocked me but also people around as we had the smallest and most inexperienced team but still came second.  

A hard fought and well deserved second place

Tournament Scores:
James McBride 30pts
Paul McBride 20pts
Musonda Mwansa 15pts
Mwansa Mwansa 12pts
Daniel Weiandt 12pts
Theo Kabwe 5pts
Fungai Chanda 5pts



Report by Fungai Chanda