Gweru, September 08, 2010 - Gweru Sports Club (GSC) rugby team is set to return to the national rugby league next year.

This development may trigger a revival in Midlands Province of rugby.

The Gweru Sports Club side last featured in the premier rugby league in 2004 when the then sponsors, Lion Lager pulled out their resources and the entire national rugby fabric seemed to have crumbled in the heart of the country.

Former Zimbabwe rugby sevens national team player and GSC chairman Zwelonke Mloiswa revealed that Gweru Sports Club had a franchise in the national league and had decided to take it up beginning the 2011 season.

The club’s player coach noted that GSC rugby club’s participation in the national league would resuscitate rugby in Gweru and its districts namely Kwekwe and Zvishavane.

“There used to be vibrant rugby tradition back in the day when Gweru Sports club was a powerhouse in the league with a highly competitive districts league as well as a high schools semi-league and all that rugby has gone to sleep,”  said Zwelonke Mloiswa.

“We used to host the  Midlands Rugby festival that attracted foreign sides such as London Hospital from the UK and South Africa’s cape town University while Gweru Sports club was a regular at Mosi Rugby sevens tourney in Zambia and our return in the national league will mark a come back of the good old days,” he said

Club secretary Kilvan Magunje, who was part of the Zimbabwe national sevens teams that lifted the Castle Sevens tourney in Zambia , echoed Mloiswa’s sentiments emphasising that Gweru Sports Club had produced a lot of good players.

Some of the players mentioned included national rugby sevens team and Busters coach Gilbert Nyamutsamba, Donald Mangenje, Arnold Takawira, Zwelonke Mloiswa, Allan Mudhewa, Clifton Frankis and Joseph Mudzingwa among many others.

However GSC rugby team is in a bitter field wrangle with a local division football club Hardbody over a Gweru Sports and Social Club rugby facility that has been turned to a football pitch.

The Sports and Social club executive unconstitutionally leased the rugby field to Hardbody when the rugby team folded five years ago. The rugby side now faced a mammoth task to reclaim their traditional home ground as the soccer team was determined to hold on to their
training facility.

At present GSC rugby team has sought refugee at Midlands Christian College.