If you’ve been on another planet for the past few days you may not have heard of this guy. So let me introduce you to the young man the entire rugby world has been talking about – Takudzwa Ngwenya.
Otherwise known as Z, Ngwenya is the 22 year old Zimbabwean born flyer who, on Sunday night against the Springboks left Bok speedster Bryan Habana for dead, scoring a fantastic USA Eagles try that will live long in the memory as a World Cup classic.
Z not only finished off a length of the field break that started with Todd Clever’s intercept, but he also did something that to my knowledge no other man has ever done on the international stage – he ran around Bryan Habana.
And since then, the phonecalls haven’t stopped, with him already having been approached by two English clubs. A move to Europe looks on the cards for sure.
Radiologist Ngwenya is modest about the moment of the World Cup so far.
“I was thinking of kicking but then I thought I would try and get him to stop, and then gas him out wide,” Ngwenya said. “And he did stop. It’s not that I’m fast, I just got him to stop so that worked pretty well. I knew he would be annoyed. If I got beaten by a slower person, I’d be annoyed.”
“He (Habana) is the best winger in the world,” Ngwenya said. “I was intimidated every time he got the ball. If you look at the video or saw the game live, I was just yelling ‘come on, come on’. I was intimidated. I didn’t want to leave him one on one with me – and luckily I didn’t.”
Ngwenya describes the two speedsters’ meeting after the match:
“He just said, ‘Nice job’, and ‘Sorry about the bump’.
“Sorry about the bump” referring to the headclash that between them early in the second half.
All in all, a great match and nice to see the USA being so actively involved in the World Cup. For the first time they look to have a true rugby superstar, who scored a try that will not be forgotten any time soon and will hopefully raise the status of the odd balled game in the US.
Final score: 64-15 to South Africa
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