Herbert Mensah
President of the Ghana Rugby Association, Herbert Mensah, has expressed his profound gratitude to a number of corporate organizations for their support towards the Ghana Rugby, especially the Men’s 7s triumph recently.
The Men’s 7s squad won the Challenge trophy in South Africa at the Olympic Quality.
Kenya emerged the ultimate winner of the tournament.
But Mr. Mensah believes the Ghanaian rugby team was able to put up an excellent performance in South Africa because of the immense financial and logistical supports from such organizations like Sunda, and the Twyyford Group.
“We are long way short of where we want to be. But it’s so important that I raise my hat and give thanks first to Sunda, the Sunda Twyyford Group has stepped in where we really needed to,” he said. The cost of the advance party, preparation matches etc would not have been possible without their kind intervention.
He also thanked the PanAfrican Group, Societie Generale, Interplast and Gino, among others, for their immense support toward the Men’s 7.
Touching on the positive impacts their supports were making to the development of Ghana rugby, he said, “we can’t balance our budget but it is a movement in the right direction.”
He bemoaned how it is difficult to raise money in Africa for the development of other sports if one is not in football or politics.
“Sport is big business. We push as much as we can to get sponsors and people involved in the game,” according to him
He added that “we understand this is Africa. It’s not easy to raise if you are not involved in football or you are not involved in politics. When you are involved in minority sport, it’s always difficult.”
Mr. Mensah explained that “we understand that sport is not about us, it’s about the people. And the only way you are going to work, if you want to compete is to raise money.”
Rugby is the second biggest sport in the world.
Ghana’s ranking in Africa has gone up to nine and Mr. Mensah is strongly convinced that without the support of those organizations the country’s rugby teams would not have made the progress they have chalked in recent times.
Congratulations
Meanwhile, he has congratulated the Men’s 7s for their victory and for making Ghana proud in the international rugby arena. In the last four years Ghana has been admitted as full members of World Rugby, Hosted and won the 1D W. African Competition, Hosted and won the Bronze Cup, qualified to participate in the Men’s and Women’s 7s, Won the Challenge Trophy for both Women and Men and have now extended Getting into Rugby training for more than 4,500 school children in Ghana
He observed how each player on the team very committed to succeed, pointing out physical training has been one of the major hallmarks of the team.
In concluding Herbert extended notable praise to Coach Dallas Kuzorera, Team Manager Hakim and Captain Alex Dorpenyo.
Ghana now plays Botswana in the Nations Cup at Elmina on November 23rd with the winner going on to play with World renowned Zimbabwe!