BEJA, Tunisia, July 7, 2018 – On Saturday, the Tunisian Rugby team beat its opponent the Zimbabwe Rugby team 18-14, to earn 4 points in the Rugby Africa Gold Cup 2018competition, a qualifier for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Just 6 minutes into the game, Mohamed Ali Gafsi came close to giving Tunisia the lead when he missed a penalty.
At minute 24, Mohamed Mliss scored Tunisia’s leading 5 points. His team-mate, Mohamed Ali Gafsi, failed to score the conversion attempt.
Tunisia’s lead was shortlived. 3 minutes later, Lenience Tambwagra tied the score for Zimbabwe from a try and successfully scored the conversion attempt, putting his team at a 7-5 lead that lasted through the 1st half.
Lenience Tambwagra came back once again at minute 51 to deepen Tunisia’s wounds when he scored and successfully converted an attempt. Zimbabwe was now at a comfortable 14-5 lead.
Mohamed Ali Gafsi scored a penalty for Tunisia at 57 minutes only for his team-mate, Issam Ouerhani to return 4 minutes later and score once again for Tunisia.
After Gafsi successfully scored the conversion attempt, Tunisia was now back in the lead with 15-14
In the final moments of the game, Tunisia was able to secure their victory after they scored 3 more points before the referee blew the final whistle, officially awarding Tunisia the match points.
Tunisia coach Ahmed Guerbech shared his excitement: “On the international level, we beat Zimbabwe last year. We prepared well for this game. We still have 3 more games that are not going to be easy, 2 of which are away games. Today, we guaranteed an 80% chance of staying in Group A. The players spared no effort and they were true gladiators on the pitch, they made sacrifices by leaving everything behind and joining the team. Bravo to the team.”
Zimbabwe coach Jacob Stoman also added: “What went wrong was obviously costly errors from our end. Each time we made a mistake, it got Tunisia back in the game. We lacked composure. Tunisia took advantage of that window of mistakes, that’s what sport is about when you are given an opportunity, take it and go for it.”
