Zambia Sevens Rugby Team coach Musonda Kaminsa is upbeat ahead of Friday’s match against Fiji at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Zambia will later face Wales and Canada in Group C of the rugby competition that is running between July 29 and 31 July at Coventry Stadium.
In a pre-match interview, Kaminsa said Zambia is looking forward to the game against Fiji.
“Well it’s a big game obviously but we are excited and looking forward to playing the Olympic champions. Yes we are excited. Obviously playing against the Olympics and World Champions seven aside Fiji, even Wales and Canada you know those are top tier teams and we are regarded as tier three teams,” Kaminsa said.
Zambia qualified to the 2022 Commonwealth Games last April after finishing fourth at the Rugby Africa Cup in Uganda.
“So it is a great opportunity for the guys first of all to play against the big guns and we just want to go play rugby and enjoy it. I know it won’t be easy but we will do our best and we will take it from there. Who knows?”
“It could be the biggest upset in world rugby more than Japan beating South Africa. So let’s wait and see tomorrow,” Kaminsa said.
Zambia played against New Zealand, Canada and Kenya in Group C of the rugby category at the last Commonwealth Games held in Australia in 2018.
prepare for a thumping
That is what Fiji does to everyone in 7-a-side Rugby…
The final score was 52-0, Fiji were too big, too strong and too good. We really should not be wasting our scant and scarce resources on some of these sports. It would be better if we focused on men and women’s football development in primary and secondary school, Forget basketball, netball, tennis swimming, volleyball and all other expensive sports. The only sport we should be participating in track.
Zambia 0 Fiji 52
Zambia 5 Wales 38
I was surprised to see that Zambia was participating in the Commonwealth games in rugby 7s. The first thing I asked myself was, Are they serious?
Well,I was proven right by the scores:57-0, 38-5, 24-12, and 19-7.
The matches I watched showed that the team was not technically prepared. They thought that rugby 7s is about running. They looked confused most of the time. If the Zambia Rugby association really wants to build rugby in Zambia, they must show seriousness, Uganda and Kenya started just like us but their continued participation in the World Rugby series has made them where they are.
Let us not waste the resources if our intention is to just participate and end up being humiliated with a total scoreline of 142-12.
It was worse at the last Commonwealth games