Kenya’s National Sevens Rugby Team launch gold hunt against Cook Islands

Kenya Sevens team player Dan Sikuta is tackled by Ustin Lickington of South Africa as Oscar Ouma provides support.

Kenya’s National Sevens Rugby Team will open its campaign at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games with a match against Cook Islands on Saturday.

The match, which kicks off at 1.16pm Kenyan time, will see the National Sevens Team play three matches on the same day in the Pool B, which  also has Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa.

Kenya take on Trinidad and Tobago at 9.52pm, almost nine hours after the first match, with the last preliminary encounter against South Africa coming at 12.10am on Sunday.

The National Sevens Team is bound to meet the same teams that it competes against at the International Rugby Board (IRB) World Series at the Commonwealth Games and it will thus test their strength ahead of the 2014/2015 season that kicks off in December.

This explains the need for Head Coach Paul Treu to take the games seriously with hope of winning the cup or drop at respectable stages ahead of the HSBC Sevens Series kicking off in November in order to improve on Kenya’s IRB ratings in the coming season.

The team left for Glasgow yesterday and will be making their debut in the competition. The players have been training at the Rugby Football Union of East Africa grounds and the Brookhouse School for the last two weeks.

The Commonwealth Games will officially start on Wednesday and run until August 3.

Meanwhile, Kenyan coaches Kevin Wambua and Michael Owino have left for South Africa to attend a seven-day workshop on Talent Optimisation Program (TOP) sponsored by the International Rugby Board in Stellenbosch, according to the Kenya Rugby Union website.

Wambua coaches the National Women Sevens Team, The Lionesses, while Owino is attached to the Kenya Sevens squad.

The course is designed as an elite-level coaching clinic aimed at supplementing the IRB’s coaching development program and participants will not only cover top-level coaching education material but also instruction on the business side of the modern game of rugby.