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The Kenya Sevens rugby team Shujaa’s head coach Damian McGrath maintains that Shujaa were in control of the games they played in Cape Town but simple mistakes cost them the top eight cut.

Shujaa finished in the ninth-place playoff after the team lost to Ireland in a match that was played by five Kenyan players against seven during the dying minutes of the match.

After meeting some of the world series leaders, the team nonetheless recovered to beat Uganda 19-5 and Canada 21-10.

Johnstone Olindi and Denis Abukuse were the only substitutes on the bench owing to Billy Odhiambo’s head injury and the suspension of Kevin Wekesa and skipper Nelson Oyoo.  

Decent performances

“It was three days of rugby and we got some decent performances against Argentina but very simple mistakes literally cost us the game which was disappointing because we had a good chance.  “With New Zealand, we were only 7-5 at halftime and we were very confident in the second half but unfortunately, again mistakes were a big issue for us.

Last match

“It was until the last game of the group that we drew with Spain which had beaten New Zealand and we were again disappointed because we should have won the last match but we were fatigued,” the coach said.

Mcgrath added, “We came up strong against Ireland which is one of the teams leading the series on the following day and we led 14-0 but again a couple of issues cost us the lead.

“We had a chance with a penalty to win the game but unfortunately a yellow card and a red card during the extra time left us with only five men and we couldn’t hang on to win the game that we really deserved to win.”

“Again we received suspensions for Kevin Wekesa and Nelson Oyoo while Billy Odhiambo had also suffered a knock against New Zealand which ruled him out of the tournament.”