KRU’S BIG TRY: Rugby Union wins scrum down with Sevens players, Safaricom set to return

Kenya's Willy Ambaka scores a try against New Zealand during the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens tournament on March 23, 2013. AFP PHOTO / ANTONY DICKSON

It is a try! A big try for that matter for the Kenyan Rugby Union if, as expected, today’s press briefing will be attended by Safaricom's top brass, who barely four months ago severed ties with the KRU.

It will be the greatest coup yet by the new KRU boss, Richard Omwela, who appears to have also got the better of National Rugby Sevens team senior players by letting their contracts run out on July 31.

Yesterday, a press invite from KRU listed Safaricom chief executive officer Bob Collymore and the marketing director of Kenya Airways, Chris Diaz, as the chief guests at a function in Nairobi, today, to discuss sponsorship matters. “The Kenya Rugby Union will on Thursday, August 6, 2015, provide a critical update on the future of sponsorship of rugby in the country. KRU’s Chairman Richard Omwela will use the opportunity to announce recent developments in the national rugby space,” the invite read.

The possible return of Safaricom to local rugby would be a score for KRU, who appeared cornered recently after elite rugby Sevens players declined to resume training ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic qualifiers, bringing to question Omwela’s ability steer the organisation that has come under the spotlight recently.

And yesterday, apparently with some renewed oomph, KRU came out to rubbish claims they had disbanded the Sevens team.

“When the 2014-2015 IRB Sevens leg ended, there were no more duties for the national team, technically the team has been off-season from May; disbanded is too strong a word to use on this,” said Director National Squads Oscar Mango.

Mr Mango told FeverPitch contracts for all the national 7s team players duly ended on July 31 and that they have started a new process of team selection.

“The selection is ongoing. A panel of selectors has been formed by the union to work on this. The selection process commenced last weekend at the national Christie Sevens won by the Kenya Harlequins and it will continue in the other national sevens circuit,” he said.

Mango advised the players, whose contracts have expired, to take part in the series to stand a high chance of being selected.

“It will be wise for all the players to take part in the national circuit to be picked. But we know there are other instances that can be exempted, like when a player is injured,” he said.

The fate of the technical bench is not yet clear even as KRU insisted their contracts are intact until September next year, but were non-committal as to whether they would take charge of the squad once picked by a panel of selectors.

KRU CEO Ronald Bukusi insisted: “We are restructuring our programmes having suspended them for evaluation.
“The beauty of it is that everyone, from the players all the way up have an equal chance to return to the team. All the players were released back to their clubs so they could take part in the series.”