Rugby union in Zimbabwe is a popular sport and ranks after association football and cricket as one of the oldest and most popular sports in the country. The Zimbabwe national team, commonly known as the Sables, have been playing international rugby since the early 1900s and have made appearances in two Rugby World Cups Zimbabwe at the Rugby World Cup on two occasions. As with rugby union in Namibia, the country's lack of a professional structure, and opportunity for player's to earn an income playing rugby, has been a problem for national organisers. Governing body The Rhodesian Rugby Football Union was founded in 1895 and is based in Alexandra Park, Harare. History The history of cricket and rugby were closely tied to the early development of the country and were the most central components of white settler sport culture. Cricket and rugby drew the small and scattered white population of Southern Rhodesia together and provided a link with the United Kingdom. More importantly, the two sports 'promoted imperial ideologies of the power of the British and of masculinity expressed through sporting prowess'. Through the political efforts of William Henry Milton and other early administrators, rugby governance became highly structured and was introduced to schools across the country. From 1952, Rhodesian/Zimbabwean rugby was split into two subregions, centred on the two main cities, Harare (formerly "Salisbury" in the north) and Bulawayo in the south. For a number of years, Rhodesia competed as a province in the B division of South Africa's Currie Cup. Because of the boycott of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa, Zimbabwe was the only African side to be invited to the 1987 Rugby World Cup. It managed to requalify for the 1991 Rugby World Cup, but has not been in the tournament subsequently. As a result, unlike football, Zimbabwean rugby came to be seen as a white-dominated sport, with middle class appeal at best. This has created several weaknesses to the strength of the game, as the side relied upon South African competition for its development and was not able to achieve racial and class integration that it should have until after 1980. Another consistent issue is the sports concentration in expensive public and private schools, such as Prince Edward School and Peterhouse Boys School, making the sport largely inaccessible to the bulk of working-class parents and their children. Today the biggest challenge facing the sport