Coach Peter de Villiers has suggested that the controversy over accommodation in Tunisia was not a factor in Zimbabwe’s 18-14 loss on Saturday.
After losing to Kenya in a World Cup qualifier at the end of June, Zimbabwe travelled to Tunisia where they first encountered issues at passport control upon entry in the northern African country, before opting to sleep on the streets due to dissatisfaction with conditions at the allocated accommodation.
Pictures of Zimbabwe players sleeping on the streets led to a widespread backlash, although the Tunisia Rugby Union later hit back at Zimbabwe over the events that led to them leaving the original hotel.
Zimbabwe were eventually relocated to a ‘suitable’ hotel, but would go on to suffer a disappointing defeat to Tunisia, which leaves them down in fifth place in the Gold Cup standings.
De Villiers ultimately took to Twitter to play down the accommodation debacle as a mere ‘hiccup’ and insisted that his players were still ‘ready’ for the clash against Tunisia.
It’s been a hectic 2 weeks for us , we gave it our all in Kenya ?? and the boys showed great improvement and gave Kenya a good run. We had a little bit of a hiccup to the start of our Tunisia ?? leg of the tour, but the boys were ready for the game. pic.twitter.com/cX6mw6Ll59
— Peter De Villiers (@PeterDeVillier5) July 8, 2018
they now understand they are international players and need to let their game speak, overall i`m happy with the performance from the boys we just have to work on how to kill off a team, we lost both games while we had the lead so we are going to work on that. WE ARE STILL IN IT
— Peter De Villiers (@PeterDeVillier5) July 8, 2018
Photo: Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix
