High octane mission

By BS MULAVI

Kenya get their chance today to avenge their early exit from the England leg of the IRB circuit at the penultimate leg of the series in Scotland.

Kenya is in a relatively arduous pool against second placed England, the hosts Scotland and a tricky Canada outfit. Shujaa has old scores to settle with the hosts who engineered Kenya’s early exit from the main cup in England last week.

Scotland scooped up their first points of the series last week when they qualified to the quarterfinals at Kenya’s expense. The Scots are bound to use this momentum in their favour as well as home advantage.

Biggest hurdle

Shujaa though, has a good record over the hosts and on a good day they will be favourites to win the game.

England pose the biggest hurdle for coach Benjamin Ayimba and his men.

The second placed team in the series is the only team who can mathematically catch up with the series leaders South Africa and they are likely to throw in everything in the Scotland leg to further their endeavors.

England won last week’s leg and Kenya will have to raise their game to beat the lions. Kenya has already beaten the Englishmen on several occasions and Ayimba will be itching to add to that tally.

The only relatively easy game will be against Canada who Kenya struggled to edge last week in the bowl quarterfinals of the England leg.

Kenya still lies sixth in the series with 60 points and they will be going all out to win the tournament, scoop the maximum 20 points and hopefully get a podium finish.

Collins Injera will also be hoping to finish as the top try scorer in the series. The young Mwamba winger currently leads the table with 35 tries 8 more than second placed Luke Morahan of Australia.

Injera and his brother Humphrey Kayange are among the six players who have been nominated for a possible award of the IRB Sevens Player of the Year. The winner will be named after the final of the Emirates Airline Edinburgh Sevens Festival on Sunday.