Hogs won all their matches and faced off against the visiting All Stars rugby club from Pretoria in the final, pulling a 7-5 win. The women’s champions is Tuks who walked away with P10, 000, with Wise Leadership Phoenix scooping the second spot with P7, 000 cash prize and UB Rhinos settled for the third position pocking P5, 000 cash prize. The fourth position went to BDF. The women prizes were sponsored by Orange Botswana. However, the men’s division did not have cash prizes. Hogs had a good year, winning the Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) Super League 15s. The coach, Vuyisile Moyo. told SportMonitor that they prepared well for the tournament, winning three 7s tournament ahead of the Gabs 7s International Rugby event. “It is a great feeling to have won this tournament and it is a big achievement for my boys. We have received an invitation to play one more tournament in Pretoria at the All Stars Academy next month,” Moyo said.
The tournament was organised by UB Rhinos. Club chairperson, Hakim Emmanuel, said the tournament went according to plan although some countries did not show up. He also said they had invited clubs from Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe. But they cancelled at the last minute, and only All Stars and Tuks from South Africa attended the event. “Despite the cancellations, the clubs have promised to attended next year but the most important thing is that they want us to start sending out invitations by February, that will make planning better,” he said. Emmanuel said they are now working on evaluating the event, share the report with sponsors in order to open doors for the 2025 negotiations. He stated that the major lessons from the first edition is for a strong team to run the tournament, proper planning in time, the need to follow protocol and a contingency plan should be in place in case of any unexpected incidents.
Emmanuel said 7s is the only rugby format that is played at the Olympics, if taken seriously, one day Botswana could also send a team especially the women team to the Olympics. He said it is important for Rhinos club to work together with the Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) and the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) and the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) for that to happen. “This event was not only a networking platform for players only even officials had the opportunity to do that. We had invited officials from other countries for the games to empower our officials especially the women. Next time we will like for them to conduct a workshop a day before the tournament,” he said. Regarding medical attention for the players, Emmanuel called on clubs to make medical insurance available for their players in the next edition.
Hogs: 7 All Stars: 5
