Rugby: All eyes on Matoka as Chipu eye U20 Barthes Cup

The 2021 Rugby Africa Barthes Cup action between Kenya U20 and Senegal U20.[Courtesy-KRU]

The Kenya U20 rugby national team also known as Chipu will be seeking to defend their Rugby Africa U20 Barthes Cup title when they meet Madagascar on Sunday at the Nyayo National Stadium at 1 pm East African Time.

All eyes will be on Kenya’s utility back Andrew Matoka as he leads the points scoring charts at the 2021 Barthes Trophy tourney after two rounds of action.

Matoka has 15 points coming off one try, two conversions and two penalties in the total of 90 points scored in the competition so far.

Kenya who are the defending champions opened their U20 Barthes Trophy campaign with a huge 50-3 win over Senegal on June 26 and they will be looking to replicate the same performance when they face Madagascar in the last fixture of this year’s tournament.

Chipu have been in camp for the past three weeks under the experienced technical bench led by KCB RFC head coach Curtis Olago and former Kenya international Peter Mutai who acts as the Team Manager.

“The camp has been good; we have gotten to be together for the past three weeks. We have worked on our systems and polished the mistakes we made against Senegal and we are now working on a system to take on Madagascar,” said Mutai.

“We are leaving nothing to chance. Madagascar is better than Senegal so we expect a really tough game. We are really prepared.”

Kenya will be using this tournament as preparation for next year’s Junior World Trophy while the final ranking will be determined after the game.

Chipu hosted the Barthes Cup competition in 2019 and went on to win and qualify for the World Junior tournament held in Brazil and securing the sixth position. The Barthes Cup tournament is used as a qualifier to the Junior World Rugby.