Kenya Lionesses fail to win single game at Dubai 7s

Rugby
By Washington Onyango | Apr 04, 2021
Kenya Lionesses' fly half Grace Adhiambo in action during a past match. [Washington Onyango, Standard]

Kenya Lionesses endured a difficult weekend at the Emirates Dubai Invitational Sevens tournament after finishing last in the two-day competition which ended yesterday.

The Lionesses failed to win any of their six matches they played in a round-robin format against USA, Brazil, Japan, Canada and France. The dismal performance saw Kenya finish bottom in the tourney with a paltry six points.

Despite Sinaida Aura stepping out of retirement and the availability of speedster Janet Okello, Christabel Lindo, Cynthia Camilla and Celestine Masinde, Kenya could not find a winning formula in Dubai.

In the opening day, Kenya narrowly lost 19-14 to Japan before suffering a 38-5 humiliation at the hands of Canada in their second match.

USA piled more misery on the East African nation after thrashing them 46-7 in the third game as Felix Oloo’s girls struggles in the tournament continued.

It was a similar situation yesterday after Kenya suffered three heavy defeats. They first went down 17-5 against Brazil followed by a 31-12 defeat to France 2 and 43-0 against France 1 respectively.

This result is a similar scenario witnessed last month when they finished bottom at the Madrid 7s event before hitting back to reach the finals in the second leg of the Spanish Invitational event.

Janet Okello (left) and Christabel Tata during training at RFU grounds, March 28, 2019. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

And just like the Madrid 7s, Kenya will be aiming at improving their performance when the second leg of the Dubai 7s tournament gets underway on April 9.

Lionesses scored only seven tries in the entire six matches played across the two days and they will need to improve and work towards perfecting their offensive plays next week.

Kenya finished as runners up in the 2019 edition of the Dubai tourney after losing 0-10 to the France 7s Development.

But it will not be a walk in the park for the Kenyans next week as they will once again face USA, Canada, Japan, Brazil and France.

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