Vultures' World Cup dream over

THATO KALA
Correspondent | Friday June 21, 2013 00:00

 

The Vultures lost the semi-final 41-12 to more experienced Tunisia before going down 43-5 to Senegal in the losers' final last Saturday. The results ended their dream to book a World Cup berth as well as gain promotion to Division 1A of the 2014 Africa Cup.Botswana Rugby Union (BRU) president, Bob Lekan, who had travelled with the team, said it was a worthy experience.

'It was good exposure for the team although we are out of the World Cup,' he told Mmegi Sport in Gaborone yesterday.The tournament, hosted in Dakar, Senegal was merely a passage for the next qualifying round.Had the Vultures won they would have proceeded to the next round of the qualifiers.Namibia won the tournament after beating Tunisia 45-12 in the final. They had beaten the hosts in the other semi-final.

The BRU boss said Botswana's biggest letdown at the tournament was their physical conditioning.'We realised we lacked physical conditioning - we have to up that a bit. Skill-wise we are at par with the rest of the guys. So we will soon sit down with the technical team and see how we can improve on that,' he said.The Vultures had a challenging preparation ahead of the tournament. In the last week of their preparations, the team failed to practise twice because of load shedding. In preceding weeks, player turnout at training sessions was pathetic with some being held up by work commitments. The next international competition will be the Sevens tournament in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, in September and Lekan says they will be sending both men and women's teams. Meanwhile, the local league that is in a recess, resumes on July 6.