National 15s second string side scraped through a narrow 20-17 victory over neighbours Uganda in the Elgon Cup at RFUEA grounds yesterday.

Playing the first leg of the annual tournament at the Ngong Road venue, the hosts failed to capitalise on the home advantage and struggled to get past their opponents.

Mitch Ocholla, the Kenya’s head coach said the team was only playing at 60 percent of their potential and could have done much better.

Despite the dismal performance, the coach claimed he was still upbeat considering they had posted the victory even in unusual circumstances. “The positive of the day is that we won. We were not playing at our best, but still got the victory,” he said.

“That gives us confidence as we head to Uganda for the second leg of the tournament, where I feel we will be much better, given the experience we have now.”

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Some of the key components Ocholla and his side will have to look at is on ball retention. Kenya squandered a number of their line-outs and were also scrappy in open play.

Uganda are expected to be much tougher at home and not only will Kenya need to be prepared technically, but they will also need the mental strength to overcome the vociferous home crowd.

Ocholla expressed his optimism of retaining the title and explained that he had seen sparks of brilliance from the squad.

Key among their strengths was the ability to score from the moving maul, each time the forwards were able to consolidate in the opponents strike zone.

The tactician, however, refused to comment on whether there will be changes in the team ahead of the return leg. Instead, he said that they will have to review the performance with the technical bench before any decisions are be made.

However, given the lacklustre performance by some of the players, changes might be inevitable for the side, whose backs were extremely under-utilised.

Some of the players they might consider changing will be the half backs’ combination, which acted as a bottleneck for the team.

The second leg of the tournament will be played in Kampala next weekend, which will involve male and females teams.

Earlier in the day, the national women’s team played to 5-5 score against Uganda, which means the winner will be declared in Kampala when the two teams meet again.

Meanwhile in Harare, national 15s team lost 28-20 to the hosts.