- Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Trophy – Fifth-place Semifinal
- Result: Zambia 21-13 Uganda
The bottom-ranked team at the end of this year’s Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Trophy will be relegated from the championship for next year’s edition.
After Wednesday’s heartbreaking 21-13 defeat against Zambia in the placement semifinal, Uganda find themselves hanging by a thread.
Uganda had had to deal with a illness within the camp which forced three late changes to the squad. This was then compounded by injuries during the match that withdrew two others in the first half.
“It was a very difficult position to be in as a team. No one wants to be out there losing their players to maybe illness or injury. But that is the reason we travel with a twenty-eight-man squad, to be able to cover for such eventualities,” Uganda’s coach Emmanuel Katuntu said to Kawowo Sports post-match.
Uganda were the first to strike in two minutes with Ethan Mugabi’s try which was easily converted by Matthew Musasizi to make it 07-00. But from there, Zambia scored fifteen unanswered points to lead 15-00 with fifty minutes played.
“I think we made it easy for them to do that because when you get a good start and you don’t capitalise on it, you give the opponent a window to come back in. And we were also not helping ourselves by infringing so much. That gave them, one, territory and, number two, very kickable penalties,” Katuntu added.
Zambia were the better organised and more efficient team on the day in which flyhalf Cedric Tendai kicked eleven points off the tee.
Uganda failed to make the right decisions in the right places with multiple visits to Zambia territory which made a comeback even more difficult. The East Africans’ only points in the second half were two penalties by Gift Wokorach and Musasizi.
The loss condemns Uganda to a 7/8th placement match against Madagascar, who lost by 14-11 to Cote d’Ivoire earlier that morning. The winner will book the last available ticket to next year’s tournament.
Madagascar were ranked fourth and second respectively in the last two most-recent editions of the Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Trophy.
“I think it’s a no-brainer. We need to win that game. So we are going to fight so hard to make sure we leave the team where we found it. We don’t want to be playing out of this tournament,” Katuntu concluded.
Losing to Madagascar on Sunday will send Uganda down the tricky repechage path to regain their place among Africa’s top eight U20 rugby nations.
