Rugby League scheduled

 

Local rugby fanatics will be thrilled with the return of the Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) league despite continuous struggle to find sponsors. The weekly rugby action is anticipated to kick-start on the 9th of March. This was confirmed by Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) Secretary General, Ernest Mantsi in a brief interview with Sun Sports this week.

Mantsi revealed that they have not been  able to find sponsors for the league as yet but it will start at the said dates, nonetheless. “At this moment the league is being fully funded by BRU as we have not yet secured sponsors and hopefully we will prevail soon,” he said. Quizzed about the state of rugby in the country, Mantsi said they are still in the building stage, “Our rugby is growing at a slow rate because at the moment we have no player plying his or her trade abroad and our national teams have not been doing well but I have confidence that we will improve with time,” said Mantsi.

On the other hand, the past season triumphant University of Botswana (UB) Rhinos Rugby Club (RC) ladies’ Fitness mentor Koketso Ntshebe said they have long started their preparations for the league, “Our pre-season so far have been impressive, we had eight weeks of conditioning and we are now left with close to three weeks which will be coupled with some key friendly matches,” he said. Ntshebe further reiterated that they aim to put out a better showing than last season, “We need to improve as a squad and we have some new acquisitions who we are still teaching our style of play.

We have a trip to South Africa, Pretoria to participate in the Tuks Sevens tournament which will add to our preparations for this season,” Ntshebe reiterated. Nevertheless, Botswana Rugby league (ladies section) comprises Gaborone Hogs RC, Botswana Defence Force (BDF) Cheetahs RC, Savage RC, Jaguars RC, Jwaneng RC, and Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) north and UB Rhinos RC who will be battling for honours this season.