OLD Miltonians (OMs) rugby club has been invited to take part in a Botswana Accounting College Sevens tournament on Saturday. BATANAI MUTASA SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
The competition which will be held in Francistown is normally for Botswana clubs, but Old Miltonians has been roped in as part of the invited teams this year.
One of the event organisers, Zilwele Khumalo, said the tourney would be used as a selection platform for the Botswana national Sevens squad and a foreign opponent would help raise competition levels.
“We sent invitations to local clubs and our cut-off time to confirm participation is Thursday (today), so I could give you fixtures on Friday,” Khumalo said.
“Although there is no prize money for winning, we will award shields for outstanding performers,” he added.
The invitation comes at a time when the local National Rugby League has been suspended with the possibility of cancellation after it failed to get backing for the 2014 season, struggling to pay for member teams’ transport.
OMs manager Theo Weale said the invitation comes at the right time as it gives the team something to look forward to especially since there is uncertainty about the future of the league.
“We will travel with a standard team of 12 players and the boys are very excited although it is rather at short notice.
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“The final team to travel will be selected tomorrow (today) and players are competing for positions since the selection will be done from the whole 15’s squad,” Weale said.
He said travel plans would be finalised today and they were hoping to leave for Botswana tomorrow, arrive and prepare to put up a good performance on Saturday.
However, he extended a plea to all people interested in rugby to assist the club in any way since they would fund the trip themselves and their resource base was very limited.
“Opportunities like this don’t come every day and we want to ensure we can fulfil this fixture,” he added.
