By ADRIAN MWANZA –
THE Zambia Rugby Union (ZRU) says fans should not be too expectant of the national 7s team ahead of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games looking at the group.
ZRU president Clement Sinkamba said this on Tuesday night at the Best Western Plus Hotel during the launch of the new national 7s team kit made by British firm Fortress.
Zambia is in Group C against African giants Kenya, Canada and current world champions New Zealand.
“In as much as these guys have qualified for the Commonwealth Games, we should not expect too much from them as they are going to be competing at such a big stage for the first time and that is not to forget that they are in a tough group,” he said.
Sinkamba said Zambia can use the forthcoming Commonwealth Games as a gauge and springboard to launch a sustained campaign to qualify to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well as the 2021 Rugby 7s World Cup to be held in Japan.
He said qualifying to the Commonwealth Games was no mean feat and that the team needed to be given a pat on the back for qualifying but threw a challenge to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
And the RSMG launched the new kit to be used by the national 7s team which will be in three strips been orange, green and white.
Action Auto Zambia sales and marketing manager Lilia Samui said her organisation was proud to partner with the Zambia 7s squad which has continued to fly the country’s flag high.
Kazuma Enterprise chief executive officer Sasha Maglov said Kazuma, the local agents for Windhoek lager, hoped that the 7s team would replicate the same feat as last year’s when they won the Zambia 7s tournament and finished second at the Maseru 7s in Lesotho.