Story by Raynald Ngwarati
THE Zimbabwe men’s senior rugby team, the Sables’ qualification for the 2027 Rugby World Cup has been described as testament to the power of teamwork, commitment and shared dreams, a model all sport codes in the country have been urged to adopt.
After three decades in the wilderness, the World Cup dream for the Sables appeared to be far-fetched.
While, on paper the odds were against the Sables, especially against Namibia in the Rugby Africa Cup final, the motivation in the Sables camp spoke of champions and indeed it took a new generation of sportspersons to take Zimbabwe’s rugby to new heights.
Curious about how Sables turned the tables against Namibia first in 2024 and 2025, the ZBC News crew caught up with the Sables captain, Hilton Mudariki.
“Within our group we did not panic we were never under pressure even when Namibia scored. We just knew that if we tick our boxes we needed to do what we’ve worked on over the past couple of days we would have been fine. Thank goodness it came through at the end,” he said.
The last time Zimbabwe participated at the Rugby World Cup was in 1991 and Mudariki was not yet born.
“Three decades a lot of us were not born maybe one or two were born then so for us to rewrite the history books is something that we had spoken about as a group. It was part of our goals and we did know that each game was going to be our final in order for your to achieve that goal. So, to be part of that is super special and for us I think that the motivating factor was to create heroes that other Zimbabwean boys can look up to and inspire to be. We haven’t seen a green and white jersey at the world cup in a very long time so we’ve made our little contribution hopefully to inspire a St Johns boy, a PE boy, a Milton boy to want to be a sable when they grow up,” he added.
At a time sport codes like cricket, tennis and football are dropping down the ranks, Mudariki believes the Sables formula could be the only way out for Zimbabwe’s sport.
“Investment in players and investment in opportunities to play are key. If you look at our journey which started under coach Piet maybe a year and a half ago, game time was going to be the most important thing. The more we got to play together, the more that we got to know each other, the more that it became easier to produce results. People laughed at us going to play against Manica or intersquad games, but it definitely paid off. If you look at teams like Kenya and Uganda they invested so much money in flying guys in last minute and that chemistry wasn’t there. So I believe the more game time you play as a team the easier it become to then play at that world stage,” added Mudariki.
With the road to Australia 2027 cleared, Mudariki has taken up local coaching opportunities to inspire the next generation of rugby stars who will carry on with the winning DNA.
