All set for great rugby derby

NTHAKO MAJORO

MASERU – Giants chairman cum-player Letlatsa Letomba and Warriors coach Morapeli Motaung know that the odds are stacked when their teams clash in the Econet Rugby League tomorrow at Makoanyane Grounds.

Letomba believes they had enough time to recover from their last defeat (27-5) to Mabote Beavers on February 1, and that they can upset Warriors this weekend.

Motaung believes his charges are ready for an explosive Giants match.

Giants opened their fixture of the season with a heavy defeat (41-3) over the rookies Roma Kings on January 25.

Warriors on the other hand won their two opening fixtures, one against defending champions Liqhomane LDF (17-5) and against Mabote Beavers (16-9) respectively.

“Our preparation is highly intensified for the Warriors match more so because our game against them is regarded as the biggest match in the rugby fraternity in the country,” Letomba said in an interview with Public Eye on Wednesday.

“And it’s more or less about bragging rights. So as result, every time when we are to play against them we intensify our preparation with the intention to triumph over them.”

However, Letomba said the only challenge for his team is the commitments their players have apart from playing rugby.

“The challenge is that since rugby is still a small sport you would find that at times attending training sessions as a team becomes a problem due to different commitments of players.

“This is caused by the fact that our team, if not the biggest rugby club in the country, is the one who have adult players and who played rugby before all others. And so most of have family and work commitments which resulted in us not attending training sessions well, unlike before when we were students.”

But Letomba said when it comes to big games like the one against Warriors most of them tried by all means to put aside their personal commitments in order to intensify their preparation.

“For example, I am a lawyer and it is not possible for me to always knock off at 4:30pm. So this means I will have to do some of my duties very early on the day in order to knock off on time for training session when are they facing big games like the one against Warriors this weekend.

“And fortunate for us is that we had time to recover since there were no games in the past weekend. So even injuries sustained in our previous games had all been nursed,” Letomba said.

Warriors coach Morapeli Motaung also said good news for them is that none of their players is injured

ahead of the big match, something he said gave them confidence they would do well against their arch-rivals come the weekend.

“Fortunately we don’t have injuries, and this game itself is a complete motivation on both sides. This is because when we talk about the great derby of rugby in Lesotho, we talk about the Giants-Warriors game,” Motaung said.

He said his team’s advantage is that they are playing with young blood who are looking to make names for themselves.

“We are ready because they want to prove themselves so they could get call ups to the national team.

“And again we have won two big games, one against Beavers and the other against LDF. So we are going to the Saturday game with no panic at all,” Motaung said.

Full weekend Econet Rugby Premier fixtures

Liqhomane LDF vs Roma Kings (12:00)

NUL Spears vs Mabote Beavers (14:00)

Giants vs Warriors (16:00)

All the games take place at Makoanyane Grounds tomorrow respectively