The Tunisia women’s team is has emerged winner at the Rugby Africa Cup tournament held in Tunis, Tunisia. The team played Cote d’Ivoire, who had lost to Senegal in the previous match on October 17th at El Menzeh Rugby Ground in Tunis. Tunisia won the 15s game to win by a mile, scoring 61 points to nil.
Tunisia started strong, passing the ball and sprinting out hard and committed early on to moving the up the field and keeping it close to the soaring zone.
After a few run ins to Cote d’Ivoire’s tackles, Tunisia quickly adapted and upped their fast passing game sending the ball out wide onto the wing and bringing in their first try in the first eight minutes by No. 14 Ranim Madouri.
The Tunisian team showed greater unity as a team than they had done in their first match against Senegal. Despite being occasionally snarled up in Cote d’Ivoire’s attacks, Tunisia kept up the pressure with a fast paced technical game.
After Madouri’s try, No. 10 Ameni Ben Salem scored a perfect conversion. For the rest of the match she proved herself to be a precise and effective penalty and conversion kicker. In her final scoring run of the first half, she sprinted in a perfect arc to score on her feet, leaving Cote d’Ivoire’s defenders lumbering in her wake.
At the end of the first half Tunisia had scored 30 points with Cote d’Ivoire having failed to even get the ball far up enough the field to dream of scoring a try.
In the second half, Cote d’Ivoire seemed more assertive trying to the push the push up the field faster but Tunisia quickly took control of the ball to score another try in under four minutes of play.
For the early part of the second half it was a try conversion killer combo by Madouri getting balls over the line and Ben Salem kicking them across the bar.
Tunisia’s team manager Abdelaziz Chaouachi commented, “The team is now getting used to playing 15s, now the ball is moving as it should, it’s about how the players move, but about how the ball moves.”