A rescue mission is the right term to revive rugby, once among the fast growing sports, or else it will remain faded from the limelight and completely dead.
Popular events like Rugby 7s or Safari 7s, Africa Divisional level tournaments are no longer staged at Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club or IST Masaki in Dar es Salaam, Braeburn School or Friedkin Recreation Centre in Arusha.
The absence that is impacted by lack of normal calendar of activities at the rugby governing body. At this moment when Tanzanians interest is firmly glued on what Simba and Young Africans do in football.
Rugby goes virtually unknown by the majority of the present generation, as opposed to a situation in Uganda and Kenya, where rugby now challenges the dominion of football and other sports.
It is not a time to see who and what led to the decline of a sport very similar to football, rather we need to have passionate officials in the Tanzania Rugby Union (TRU), who can preside over the growth of rugby at the grassroots, beyond Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Arusha.
We either need a total overhaul of TRU leadership or hold election that will install officials who are committed to revive and develop the sport.
TRU must restructure in order to reach the glory days of the late 1990s and 2000s, when Tanzania climbed up to the second division at the continental level.
This newspaper, being among the chief players in promoting rugby during the Tinus Aucamp reign, we hate to see the sport going down the drain.
We believe by cooperating with other sport’s stakeholders and learning institutions we can heighten the sport to the normal again.
It must be said that the way things are headed, we might as well brace for a roller-coaster ride. To put this in perspective, TRU should first of all put its house in order by coming up with a structured league format that is all inclusive.
It has been disappointing to find that nothing about rugby is written or aired in our voluminous print and electronic media.
This means rugby has completed faded from limelight or clinically dead. We are inclined to say the current office has failed to deliver.
