When the underdogs became lions

I want to begin this piece with a roll call.

So read these names carefully before we go any farther, because by the end of this piece, you will know them by their names — Allan Limo, Simon Kisaka, Mike Shibudu, Nelman Likami, Collins Ochieng’, MacKenzie Silla, Kevin Macharia, Bob Lewis Mutwiri, Jeremy Chimwani, Allan Omuka, Dominic Mose, Dennis Oyombe, Hyke Otieno and Sora Hassan.

This was the rag tag army of rugby rebels that one coach Jason Hammond had collected from all over the country to face a professional top league team from Italy last weekend in Watamu. With our top lads away in HSBC 7s or something, you could say this was a third tier team playing rugby versus the creme de la creme of Italy.

Our boys were the underdogs — or the ‘mbwa wa chini’.

I joined them for lunch at the Barracuda in Watamu just before their game, and I prayed the Italians would not devour them in the manner of piranhas after lunch. I enjoyed a pina colada (one of those fancy umbrella drinks) by the pool as our lads swam in the water.

Okay, so I had a hard Guinness as I watched our rugby team swim relaxedly. “Resigned to their fate,” I thought. On the way to the rugby pitch at Gede Primary school, I sat behind their coach Hammond and played at ball boy and water boy, passing water (no pun intended) like a KDF soldier in the old Nakumatt. It was so quiet in the bus, you could have heard a rat fart.

Someone suggested music, but when the driver put on taarab ( so de-energising) it was shouted to mute. On the pitch, we watched the Italian team roll into the field in a spanking new bus, and get off one by one, near the area where Guido, the host and owner of the fabulous Garroda Resort, was seated.

Compared to our boys, those Italian fellers were huge! They looked like they had eaten all the pasta and pizza (and spaghetti) in Italy, from Sicily to Venice, before coming to hammer our boys.

The game started and the Italians were straight away crowding the Kenyan boys in the corner. You could see their plan was to use their superior body mass to hit our lads as hard and as repeatedly as they could, and scare them into submission. Incredibly, our lads held the line for a long, long, period.

Then in a burst of astonishing speed and swift passing, they broke out of the death lock of the Italian siege, cruised down the wings, scored a try. Was it a fluke?

For sure, the Italians thought, as they came back brutal and hard, pinning our boys to the corner, but still unable to make a score, as our lads hang on literally for dear life. Then a second break out, another lightning fast run on the counter attack, another Kenyan try.

By half time, the Italian Goliaths looked shell shocked, walking out of the field with dazed disbelief. They had come to Kenya for a holiday, this game just a by the way ‘walk over.’

Now they were getting socked.

Second half they came out like bulls, again they pinned back our lads, again they could not make a try despite being oh so near the touch line, so near but my dear, so far.

Again, then again, they got thunder struck on the counter attack by our boys. And all was delirium. The under dogs had gotten their rhythm, and beaten the fancied Italian giants.

Later that evening, as we celebrated the unlikely victory at a restaurant (Italian) ironically called ‘Come Back’, Bwana Hammond told me a rugby secret that is a secret of life.

“Everything’s mental,” he said, tapping his temple.

I had also learned another secret about determined men. Never, unless you are demented, underestimate them.