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K enya Lionesses will battle for a ninth place finish with Canada after beating Japan 21-17 in a nervy semifinals that proved that they are getting stronger mentally.

The sole African women’s side in Tokyo Olympics got off to a faulty start with consecutive losses before realigning to collect their first win yesterday.

Despite all the challenges, the team was ready to field seven players without a substitution when the games kicked off on Thursday but luckily an eight-day quarantine was over and the team had to recover mentally according to the team manager who believes a ninth finish is possible after dismissing the hosts in the semis yesterday.

“We played for pride against Japan. It has taken us so much mental strength to honour the games because we were going through a lot from quarantine where we had to overcome the challenges that were new to us.

We had vowed to show up for the fixtures regardless of what we were facing,” Lionesses team manager Camilyne Oyuayo told People Sport from the Tokyo stadium, Japan.

4“All along we knew we would be released on Thursday but were calm and agreed that the 7 players who were not i quarantine will go ahead and represent us and now we have an opportunity to finish ninth and live with memories of a kind – very few people know what we have been through for the past two weeks.”

The semis match flipped the nerves of local and international rugby enthusiasts at the final play of the match when Kenya brought in a solid game play to grab the show to stop Japan’s halfbacks from hurling a kick for touch to end the match whose time was up.

Japan was then in a 17-14 lead but a sharp turnover from Lionesses in a fraction of a time was quickly converted into a celebrated try scored by Cynthia Camilla.

Undoubtedly, forward Sheila Chajira deserved to get a good recovery after working tirelessly to block the hosts from scoring on the right wing they had identified as a possible gap after Kenya conceded twice in that zone while winger Stacy Wafula was on another level when she beat four defenders but lost the ball forward while attempting to offload after the last marker caught up with her.

The Lionesses had scored two converted tries for a 14-5 half time lead courtesy of two tries by Grace Adhiambo and Sinaida Aura while Grace Adhiambo converted all the three tries Kenya scored.

The Kenyans had started the day with a 31-0 loss to a composed Great Britain who fought for a slot in the top eight knockouts right from kick off to win by five tries and three conversions.

Canada shoved Brazil to a 45-0 win to set up the ninth place play-off that will be preceded by 11th place play-off where the hosts will hope to capitalise on their strengths to earn their first win in the competition which is a similar fate for the opponent.