Zimbabwe yesterday had a mixed day in the office as the Cheetahs progressed to the knock-out stages of the Kenya Safari 7s tournament but will likely sweat over the fitness of talisman, Edward Sigauke.
The day started brightly as Zimbabwe sealed their place in the quarter-finals after making light work of ReUnion, 26-19, at the Nyayo National Stadium.
With the Kenya Morans beating Apace 28-10, this meant the two group favourites secured their progression.
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Zimbabwe began the tournament on Friday with a convincing 33-17 win over Apache while Kenya's developmental team, the Morans, beat ReUnion 24-0.
However, it was during the group decider when everything fell off the hinges.
Firstly, the Kenya Morans dominated Zimbabwe 27-7 with the Cheetahs only try scorer and talisman Edward Sigauke, limping off injured shortly before the break of the one-sided affair.
The win saw the Kenya Morans finishing top of the group while Zimbabwe also progressed as runners-up.
However, it was the defeat to the Kenya Morans that will likely have given Cheetahs coach Ricky Chirengende, a sleepless night.
Zimbabwe hardly looked like the side that started the tournament so brightly and booked their ticket to the next stage with a game to spare.
The tackling was horrendous, they let in some easy tries for the hosts and, most importantly, they lost one of their top and most experienced players in Sigauke.
In fact, there was hardly any positives to draw from the match as progression had come in prior to the kick off.
"I think the day was okay and a bit mixed," said Chirengende.
"We had to win against the reunion game to get into the play-offs and we did that.
"Against the Morans, I think if we had to lose a game in this tournament, it would have been that ONE.
"We had secured our quarter-final qualification and, for me, it was an opportunity to sort of refresh the bodies and give guys that didn't get in a lot of minutes some time on the park.
"It also allowed us the opportunity to save the legs of guys like Malenga (Tapiwa), Carlos (Matema-tema) and the others that have played a lot of minutes.
"I just wanted to just give them a bit of a break," he said
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Chirengende said that he is keeping his eye on the big picture and remains satisfied that his team got the job done and qualified for the next round.
"Yeah, obviously, you want to win every game, but it's (Moran) not a bad one to lose really in the bigger scheme of things.
"We secured progression to the next round and now just have to make sure we bounce back tomorrow (today) morning," he said.
On Sigauke's injury, he added, "It's still touch and go.
"He got a bit of a bump on his shin, so we'll assess him overnight and see how he goes.
"Sigauke is, obviously, an important part of the team, so you could see even the try that we scored against Morans was scored by him on one-and-a-half legs.
"Hopefully, we can have him back for the knockouts."
