Kenya Shines in San Diego Sevens Rugby
Posted on February 12, 2008
Filed Under Sports
An impressive entourage of Kenyan fans from all over the country was present at San Diego’s Petco park for the USA round of the international sevens circuit rugby tournament. This is the fourth stop in the tournament which visits upon 8 locations worldwide starting in Dubai, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong, Australia, England and finishing up in Scotland. To say the least, our lads did not disappoint. The showing was strong, as they came out the gates with a 38-0 stomping over Chile and an impressive 19-7 win over Canada. Day 1 ended with a hard fought loss 19-12 loss to Argentina pitting them against a powerful England team for day 2. The Kenyan team, having to deal with numerous questions from the media of unrest in the country appeared focused on the task at hand, a good showing after a dismal result in New Zealand prior to arrival in San Diego was paramount as Kenyan captain Benjamin Ayimba put it.
Day 2 was quite a treat. In what is perhaps as bad a show of sportsmanship as there is, we are now learning that the English team refused to share a locker room with the Kenyan team forcing our lads to share one with the Fijian team. Unperturbed, the lads took the game to the Englishmen behind a vociferous fan contingent that urged on the Kenyan team to a 17-7 win. The Kenyans tackled well, which is critical more so in sevens rugby than in fifteen’s since it is largely man on man play. The tournament program referred to Kenyans as ‘Soft’ and ones tending to play ‘opportunistic’ rugby that capitalized on opponent mistakes behind a ‘prevent defense to use the gridiron term’. It continued that ‘any fundamentally sound team’ that does not turn the ball over should be able to defeat the Kenyan side with relative ease. The Kenyan team however, appeared more ‘fundamentally sound’ playing tight defense against a physically bigger English team and held them to one score while they themselves controlled the ball well enough on offense to score thrice (once in the first half, twice in the second half). All scores by the speedy Dennis Mwanja.
A semi-final meet with New Zealand’s vaunted All Blacks knocked the lads out 50-10 but they still have something to take home. The score, albeit lop-sided does not do justice to a good (not great) showing by the Kenyans keeping in mind they had overcome good opposition to earn a berth in the semis . The more experienced New Zealanders capitalized on lapses in Kenya’s kick offs thrice scoring after recovering the ball and racing to the try line without much defence from the Kenyan team. Two hard earned scores later and the half-time score was 33-0. The lads put on a spirited fight and scored twice in the second half. Incredibly, these were the first points conceded by New Zealand throughout the tournament. At the end though, Kenya was on the wrong side of history being made as the All Blacks earned a record 35th successive win with the victory. They moved on to win the tournament by beating a plucky and hard-tackling South African side 27-12.
THE GOOD
* Kenya played with a white arm band all tournament through signifying peace in the motherland after the election-fueled unrest witnessed in the country for close to a month.
* It is always good to see the large contingent of Kenyans at the Park and support for all things Kenyan. I am compiling a post on this to document the various initiatives.
* San Diego is beautiful and Petco Park hosted a wonderful incident-free tournament.
THE BAD
* Beverages are unbelievably expensive at Petco park. Additionally, limited variety on such beverages makes you wonder who the target really is at the ball park - die hard, obscenity yelling, potbellied baseball fan?
* Having a group from New Zealand perform a variation of native dances prior to the Semi Final meet between Kenya and New Zealand on the field was badly received, and rightly so, by the Kenyan fans. One close to me actually remarked that we should have brought out a few Maasai dancers to also showcase our dancing abilities? Such performances do give the impression that a team is being given a slight over another - this was a bad time for such a show.
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About
Magaidi.com is the journal of the African kid. A diary of sorts, a collection of musings and a discussion point on the way forward for the motherland.
That heading….looks vaguely familiar???
Let me go read!
Typical for a Kenya to complaing of expensive drinks….not to worry, I shall take a tusker pic just for you Magaidi…LOL!!!
Nice write-up. Can’t wait for the lads to land here….two weekends of rugby. BRING IT ON!!!
In case you were wondering….London & Edinburgh!!!
I love the rugby matches at petco park. Go Aussies
well play kenya
Good to hear the Kenyans did so well. Beat the English hey? And the Pumas. Excellent showing. Just a shame my team, South Africa, lost against that team as well.
Oh well, we fight another day. And do I remind people who are the world champs?