Fate on Shujaa’s hands

The Kenya 7s national rugby team has been seeded with Hong Kong 7s bronze medallist France, USA and Uruguay in pool C of the forthcoming Singapore 7s rugby tournament to be held at the National stadium from this Friday.

Shujaa is grappling with a disappointing run in Hong Kong 7s after five straight losses and focus on redemption has been turned up ahead of the Singapore leg that carries big memories from the 2016 campaign under head coach Benjamin Ayimba, assisted by Paul Murunga.

The squad that won Kenya its only gold in the world seven series had a series of nervy moments including making the cup quarterfinals cut on point’s difference against Scotland and sailing to the cup final through a penalty goal converted by legendary scoring machine Collins Injera during the semifinal against Argentina. 

The team skippered by Andrew Amonde was in a tough group in which it secured a win, a draw and a loss to South Africa.

Then as fate would have it, the team did not change tack tact on the second day but had to play for one another with the hunger and mentality for a good day in office.

The hunger for the title for instance was evident during the cup final displayed by how Kenya hunted first points of the game including taking a 20-0 half time lead against Fiji and how the team was defensively up to the challenge to only concede one consolation try.

Such hunger for success will be needed during this year’s Singapore 7s edition for the team to sail into their first cup quarter final appearance to make up for the disappointing outing.

Kenya’s next opponents are headlined by France who emerged the bronze medalist through a decisive conversion against Great Britain after coming off their first loss inflicted by the eventual champions New Zealand through a 12-7 score during the cup semifinal.   

Comparing  Kenya’s last five to the other pool rivals, both USA and Uruguay were least impressive last weekend and had a series of challenges leading up to each ending up with three losses from  five fixtures.

The USA Eagles finished sixth after a 38-7 loss to the Blitzboks’ squad that soaked in three tries against Shujaa and only responded with one try during the returning half.  The Eagles were also slammed by Spain and Great Britain and could only register wins against Australia and hapless Japan who had been clawed 40-0 by the series debutant Uruguay.  

 Uruguay on the other hand had close scores in their losses against Great Britain and France before beating the hosts Hong Kong 24-14 and shocking Japan 40-0.