Sharks' Zimbabwean import Tino Mavesere shining bright in Durban

Mavesere repaid his coach's trust in him with a Man of the Match performance against the Vodacom Bulls in mid-February. Scoring a try in the Sharks' 29-19  United Rugby Championship victory over their old foes, away from home, on the highveld, and at one stage, down to 12 men, showed how much character the team displays when the chips are down.

For Mavesere, an outstanding performance underlined his value to a team with plenty of loose forward talent. He's learning from the best around and that showed in this performance where his spirit proved indomitable and his work-ethic, unquestionable.

Having recently re-signed for the long term for the Durban franchise until June 2028, the 26-year old's reputation continues to grow.

Standing 1.89m tall and weighing 105kg, the Zimbabwean-born flanker is a tough, non-nonsense athletic rugby player.

While he was born in Zimbabwe and attended Churchill School in Harare and captained their first XV team, it was at the University of the Western Cape where he came to prominence.

It was here that he caught the eye of the Sharks scouts after an outstanding 2021 Varsity Cup campaign in which he was named 'Forward that Rocks' at the end of the season, also finishing runner-up for the overall Player of the Tournament award.

He was initially set to move to Durban after that Varsity Cup campaign, but a knee ligament injury meant his changing fortunes had to wait until 2023, when he made his debut in the Sharks Currie Cup campaign.

In June 2024, Masevere was part of the Zimbabwean National side who won the Rugby Africa Cup, held in Kapala, Uganda. In the semi-final, the Sables defeated the historically most successful team - Namibia - for the first time in 23 years.

Their 32-10 victory ensured a meeting with Algeria as they both advanced to the final, with the Sables simply too powerful for their North African opponents they claimed a 29-3 victory over to hold aloft the trophy for only the second time (they won the tournament previously in 2012) in the competition's 25 year history.