TURNING POINT: KRU chairman lauds women’s rugby team after IRB Sevens World Series in Hong Kong

South African's Lindah Brown force her way from kenya's players during their CAR rugby match at Kenyatta Stadium in Machakos county on 13-04-2014.DENNIS OKEYO

Kenya’s participation in last weekend’s IRB Women’s Sevens World Series qualifiers in Hong Kong has been described as a turning point.

The lessons learnt after the Kenyan team won one match against Mexico (55-0) and lost a close one to Hong Kong (14-17) will help the country to work on future progress, KRU Chairman Mwangi Muthee said yesterday when he welcomed the team home.

“This is praiseworthy. You cannot take it for granted. Our men’s team plays at the top of the world at the moment, but when they began, in a handful of invitational matches in the World Series they first took part in many years ago, what kind of scores were we used to seeing? 70-0, 80-0; Cricket scores!

“The girls are just starting out, and they battled bravely.”

He said the performance of the team in Hong Kong over the weekend, during the recent African Championship when they finished second to South Africa in Machakos and a previous visit to the Hong Kong Sevens, had earned the team plenty of admiration.

“It is a wake-up call and hopefully, stakeholders including potential sponsors, schools, colleges, universities, the Ministry of Sport and the Government in general will give more attention -- technical, material and financial -- to the women’s game.

“We also call upon the International Rugby Board (IRB) to intensify support of youth and community rugby in our country through the effective ‘Get Into Rugby’ programme. This will help us retain the big enthusiasm in the game, especially by girl children.”

But the KRU chairman added that an elite women’s Kenya Sevens team now needed an upgraded coaching system.

“That was an obvious key difference between our set-up and those of other teams we met at the qualifiers. A team like China, for example, does not have a rugby tradition you can talk of, yet they were so efficient; that’s because they have coaching personnel of the highest level. We must complement our fairly well-founded rugby culture with top level coaching for our top women’s team.”

Muthee said Kenya rugby future was good because there was now a system to maintain youth national teams in international competitions.

“Our 18-years-and-under team finished fourth in the recent Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China and just missed out in the Under-19 Junior Rugby World Cup in the African qualifiers.
“Women’s rugby has just as much promise as the men’s to go places and we shall ensure support including at the youth level,” concluded the KRU Chairman.