Jail time for ex-rugby star who aspired to play professionally

BY SPORTSCAST WRITER

HARARE – Old school and rugby teammates of Tobias Matonhodze, the jailed cousin of the late former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s son Bellarmine Chatunga, spoke last week of how his bust-or-win lifestyle has probably contributed to him dramatically falling foul with the law.

Motonhodze (33) was a gifted and fearless rugby player at Kyle College, a leading private school in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest city.

Tobias Matonhodze (number 15) executes the hand-off in a match against Harare's St John's College at Kyle College in 2015.

Last Wednesday. a South African court ordered the immediate deportation of Chatunga Mugabe to Zimbabwe after fining him R600 000 following the shooting of a domestic worker at the Mugabes' Johannesburg home in Hyde Park earlier this year.

His accomplice, Matonhodze, was sentenced to three years in prison after he was convicted of attempted murder, defeating and obstructing the course of justice and the illegal possession of a firearm.

In his schooldays, Matonhodze harboured ambitions of playing professional rugby abroad.

“Class of 2015, he is considered a legend, part of the teams that put Kyle on the map during our competitive period,” said an ex-Kyle first XV teammate.

“Hard to imagine a kid loyal as f***k to his teammates end up in this situation.”

A fullback with a diverse skill-set that included solid defence, tactical kicking and ability to read the game – Matonhodze was known to play the game with a do-or-die approach, which endeared him to teammates, coaches and spectators alike.

That attitude to sport also seemed to apply in his daily life.

“He had an epic try-saving tackle, I think 2015 against Falcon, when we drew with them away in Esigodini,” said another teammate.

“He had his moments. But haaa, this was always his life. High stakes stuff. Now he’s the fall guy.”

Preferring the lifestyle of a “socialite” post-school, Matonhodze didn’t play any formalised rugby thereafter despite his bags of talents and earlier ambitions, which were well supported by a school that despite only being formed in 1996, produced Zimbabwe national team players such as backline stars Tafadzwa Chitokwindo and Takudzwa Chieza.

The then Kyle headmaster and first-team rugby coach Corrie Odendaal played a crucial role in turning a relatively new school into a solid unit that competed toe-to-toe with the more established and older rugby-playing schools around the country.

Matonhodze, during his time at Kyle,  idolised the former Crusaders and New Zealand maestro Israel Dagg, who is regarded as one of the best fullbacks of his era in world rugby.

That adoration of the All Blacks great is the source of Matonhodze’s nickname, Dagg.