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Caroline Magenga Sports reporter
CHEETAHS coach Gilbert “Gidza” Nyamutsamba is banking on his boys ahead of the Confederation of African Rugby Africa Cup Sevens tournament at Prince Edward on Saturday and Sunday. Zimbabwe will be in Pool A with Kenya, Cote d’voire, Nigeria, Namibia and Uganda in the high-profile tourney that will be used as a qualifying event for the Hong Kong leg of the World Sevens Series in March next year.

The Hong Kong series is the qualifying event for the World Rugby Seven series core membership status.

To qualify for Hong Kong, the Cheetahs will have to make it into the semi-finals at the weekend.

“I am very confident the players I have in camp can deliver the results we are looking for,” Nyamutsamba said.

“The boys are going to camp two weeks running as we also prepare for the South African leg of the series to be staged at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth next month

“We have had two training sessions on Monday, two more on Tuesday and today (yesterday) we had a gym session and an afternoon rest but tomorrow we are back at it and we will have three sessions.

“We’ve called up a few senior players, so we have a mixture of seasoned players and youthful ones because we want the team to be able to handle the pressure of a tournament of this magnitude. “Being crowned African champions would really be a plus for us and at the same time this tournament is being used as a qualifier of the tournament in Hong Kong and that, on its own, is a really good prize . . . a huge and big prize we are chasing.”

The coach could not be drawn to hint at who might be in the 12-man playing squad save only to say that everyone in camp had a good chance of making it.