08 May 2014

The rugby national team, Vultures, is intensifying preparations for the African Cup 2014 Division 1C Championships, which will be hosted by Botswana next month.

The Confederation of African Rugby (CAR) organised annual competition, which features six countries, will be held in Gaborone from June 14-21.

The competing countries would be Botswana, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Swaziland and Zambia. Coach Ivor Greeves’ team is set for friendly games against opponents from South Africa as it prepares for the tournament.

On May 14, they would cross the border to take on provincial team, Leopards, in Mafikeng. And on May 31 the team will play friendlies against the Bulls and the Lions with the Botswana Rugby Union planning to bring the matches to Gaborone.

As part of preparations, Greeves said the Vultures would hold two training sessions at the Wharic Park on Saturday, where he is aiming to assess the A and B squads.

And they would continue with daily trainings sessions four times a week until the tournament commences. “With the preparations that we have planned I am confident we will be well prepared and will go into the tournament believing that we have more than a fair shot of winning the competition.

We have already assessed skills of the players and they were good,” said Greeves, who has until end of this month to name his final squad. At the moment he is working with both the A and B squads, and he maintained confidence that the players he has at his disposal have potential to win the tournament and help Botswana regain its Division IB status.

The Vultures were promoted to Division 1B two years ago after emerging as Division 1C champions, but were demoted back to Division 1C after one year.

“I think we have the ability to win our games against teams like Swaziland and Zambia, but Morocco will be our toughest challenge,” he said. “They play professional rugby while we have not reached a professional level in our country.” Ends