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The Kenya Sevens national rugby team has finished the 2021/22 World Sevens series perched 12th on the global standings with a tally of 49 points as the series ended at the Dignity Sports Park in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Zealand who are placed eighth won the title while Australia popped Samoa 21-7 for bronze to win their maiden overall series title with 126 points.

Australia are two points ahead of former champions South Africa who relinquished the title early by missing out on the main cup quarterfinals.

As South Africa dropped to contest for ninth place in L.A, the Kenya Sevens came out an improved side that was after redemption.

Successful vengeance

Coach Damian Mc Grath’s side earned the fete courtesy of a sixth place finish that was highlighted by successful vengeance over England, Scotland and hosts USA Eagles.

 Kenya wrote off a three-in-a-row one-pointer expedition in Vancouver, Toulose and the London Sevens legs.

Kenya have this season bagged four points from a total of four events (Malaga included) to setback the team’s target of landing a medal finish like in the previous season where Shujaa finished third.

 Coach Damian Mc Grath’s side shook off their opener 33-14 loss to Samoa by revenging previous losses to England and Scotland to set a date with Australia in an emotional match.

Nelson Oyoo skippered side bounced back to claw USA 21-14 to advance to the 5th place finals where they were denied a chance to record their best performance in the 9-legged circuit by rivals Argentina who won the final 29-7.

Shujaa scooped 12 points which were equivalent to their second leg of the series in Dubai in 2021 under the tutelage of former coach Innocent Simiyu where the side lost the fifth-place final to the Great Britain.

Shujaa last season finished third behind South Africa and Great Britain but the new season became a tough expedition for the side that has been through ups and downs in the 9-legged season that will had the best seven legs of each team used to determine the final overall standings to give Shujaa a slight relief owing to a total of four legs reduced to just two when it came to the minimum points to have impact as a result of a point each thus Kenya collected two points from two legs while the other 47 points was from the other five legs.

The total of three wins by Shujaa savored against England (19-14), Scotland (20-10) and USA (21-14) were demonstrations the team will be returning in action in the first week of September salivating for a medal contention in the Rugby World Cup Sevens (RWC) to kick off on Friday September 9th and conclude on the Sunday the 11th.  

Among the top tales by team Kenya includes how Billy ‘The Kid’ Odhiambo earned a badge of top points contributors for Shujaa as he became the fourth player to reach the 100 try mark in the HSBC sevens series which is equivalent to 500 points, honors that have only been achieved by fellow active forward Willy Ambaka(131 tries), Humphrey ‘Tall’ Kayange(159) and Collins Injera(279).

‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

Kenya National Rally Championship has a rich history of ‘like father, like son’ stories.