15 Oct 2018

Botswana’s poor run in the annual Africa Men’s Sevens competition continued in Tunisia over the weekend. 

The Andrew Paxinos drilled Vultures side, which included a number of stars from the local rugby league such as Tshoganetso ‘Shakes’ Katse, Ketshidile Matengana, Roberto Phobe, Ishmael Pelaelo and Tafadzwa Ncube produced a timid performance to finish in position 11 out of 12 participating teams.

Pooled in a tough group containing the competition’s four-time winners, Kenya and north African giants, Morocco, Botswana was outclassed in the round robin stage by the two giants and finished bottom of Pool A without scoring a single point on October 13. 

Kenya humiliated the Vultures 49-0 in the first match before Morocco sealed a 24-0 victory later in the day. 

Finishing at the bottom of their pool meant that the Vultures exited the main competition and only played for a better finishing position the following day.

However, the local team’s losing streak continued in the semifinals of the 10^th-12^th place classification competition as they were beaten 14-0 by neighbours Namibia.

They eventually managed to salvage some measure of pride when they defeated Mauritius 12-0 in the 11/12^th place playoff to avoid the embarrassment of finishing last in the competition.

The outcome continued the Vultures’ uninspiring run in the tournament, where they consistently finished in low positions. 

Last year, they were eighth out of 10 teams after suffering six defeats from seven matches, while they were 10^th from 12 teams in 2016 and ninth out of 12 teams in 2015.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe defeated Kenya 17-5 in the final on Sunday to win the competition for the third time. ENDS