HARARE, Zimbabwe, June 18, 2018/APO Group/ — Zimbabwe taking on Morocco, the side recently promoted from Silver to Gold group was the opener for this year Africa Gold Cup. The Africa Gold Cup this year, 2018, is also working as Japan 2019 World Cup qualifiers. The match ended in a peculiar 23 all draw.

Download the sound bite from Zimbabwe Sables captain Denford Mutamangira: we.tl/xai74iCnDM

Zimbabwe are rejuvenated under a new coach, Peter De Villiers, who has an impressive curriculum vitae that includes winning the Tri-Nations tournament as Springboks coach in 2009 in which New Zealand and Australia were he other two teams for the Boks to beat. This match was Peter De Villiers first competitive match since taking on the Zimbabwean job. Morocco, on the other hand, were an unknown quantity, as they have not featured in Gold Cup since it started in 2017 and videos of any of their recent games were not online at all.

The match went to half time break with Zimbabwe trailing 14-16.

The two tries that Zimbabwe scored in the match came from one of their two debutants, Shingirai Bobby Katsvere, the full back that scored in the 11th and 29th minutes. Lenience Tambwera, the fly half, converted both tries successfully. The other points for Zimbabwe came from the boot of Lenience in the form of three successful penalty kicks.

The Moroccan fly half scored thirteen points as he made two successful conversions and scored three penalties. The two Moroccan tries came from Scrumhalf Ismail Nassik, 31st minute and Wing Qadiri Karim, 65th Minute.

Overall the match was very entertaining and it kept the close to 15 thousand attendees well entertained. However, the early kick off threw off die-hard rugby fans that are used to late kick off times for Test matches. Long queues could still be seen outside the sports stadium during the second half.