Rugby: KCB grind Quins for Floodlies title, eye more glory

The Champion KCB players celebrates with their trophy after beating Harlequin during their Clubs Impala Floodlight final at Impala ground, Nairobi on Saturday 25/10/14.PHOTO.BONIFACE OKENDO

KCB have denied that they have fired the first salvo in fifteens rugby.

The Bankers were crowned champions of the Impala Floodlits after they convincingly beat Kenya Harlequin 30-3 in the finals.

Speaking after successfully defending the title at the Impala grounds on Saturday night, coach Curtis Olago downplayed the victory and said that the real work begins now.

“This is just a warm-up tournament and I don’t think that we can actually say that we have proven we are the force to reckon with this season.”

“The season begins now as we head to the Kenya Cup,” he said. “It would be quite unfair to gauge teams by their performance in the Floodlit as you can see we have not fielded our full strength team.”

Olago’s sentiments were echoed by his counterpart Dominique Habimana, who also claimed that his team Nakuru RFC barely played any of their first team players in the Impala Floodlit. “If you look at the team that played today, only four players were involved in the side that played in the Kenya Cup final last season,” he said.

Habimana was speaking after his side beat Mean Machine 24-16 in the 3rd/4th playoff of the tournament.

“That leaves 19 players, who will come into action when the Kenya Cup begins in November,” he added.

Unlike Olago, Habimana claims they can already see who their competitors will be in the league.

“KCB will definitely be the team that might cause us a bit of a headache, but I don’t think we can forget the likes of Quin, Strathmore and Impala,” he said. “Impala have been working on systems for quite a while and this might be the season that it all gets going for them.”

Habimana feels their approach to the Kenya Cup will completely be different to how they played in the Floodlit. “The Kenya Cup being a league, you need to score and accumulate as many points as possible so that they can cover you for the bad days.”

Olago also claimed they will be much more serious in the league and teams should expect a much different approach.

Meanwhile Kenyatta University’s Blak Blad were crowned champions of the Universities’ category of the event after they beat USIU 17-16 in a closely fought battle that saw USIU fight from behind to give Blak Blad a huge scare.