Injera recalls historic Singapore triumph, aims to overtake Norton

As Kenya Sevens prepares for this weekend’s eighth leg of the 2016/17 HSBC Sevens World Series in Singapore, one man, Collins Injera is vividly remembering their last year’s historic exploits at the same tournament.

Injera, produced a man of the match performance, scoring a brace of tries as Kenya stunned Fiji 30-17 to lift their first ever Cup title in the World Series event.

With eleventh placed Kenya enduring a rough season, many expect Injera to replicate his last year’s performance and lift the team.

“It was a very special win for us. I’ve been playing in the series for a long time now and this is my ninth year. I’ve had a lot of great memories with Humphrey (Khayange) so winning last year in Singapore was truly special for me personally. He has given a huge amount to the game and while he is not here this year, Kenyan rugby can be grateful for what he has achieved,” Injera told World rugby website, hailing his elder sibling Humphrey Khayange’s contribution.

“Going into the tournament we were confident we could do well but having never won a tournament before, we had no expectations of that sort. To win on the world series, you have to beat six quality teams to take home the trophy so a lot of things have to go your way. For us, we just had that extra bit of motivation, we played as a team and would do anything for each other.”

With their semifinal match against Argentina headed into extra time, Injera had to pull a magic, scoring a 40m penalty drop goal for Shujaa to sail through with a 15-12 victory over the European side.

“If I remember well I had missed the conversion earlier in the match, which was relatively easy. I talked to the captain Andrew (Amonde) and said let me have a shot. He looked at me and told me to go and have a shot at it. I just wanted to hit the ball as hard as I can and that’s what I did. I managed to get the technique right and the power,” he recalls.

But Injera is now more eager to go back into the record books after England’s Dan Norton surpassed him as the World Series all time leading try-scorer.

Norton took his tries tally to 245 after scoring against South Korea in Hong Kong last weekend.